A friend sent me a link to this. It was local, and very inexpensive. When I got to the seller's place, it was plugged in and running. But all was not well.

Ken, thanks for the description of the air flue thing on the back. I figured it was something like that. If you happen to run across a picture, post it if you will.

RP2813, yes the compressor slides out easily, but it is supposed to have a bolt in it at the front! When I started cleaning up the parts, I could see that there was a missing bolt which would have kept it from sliding out.

Unfortunately, I have some bad news. Apparently the rough roads were too much for her. It seems she's slipped into a coma overnight. 

I worked on the wiring and tried to run it today. The compressor ran but no cooling. Found almost no pressure in the system.

On the bright side, it will be easier to work on it with the compressor removed.

I was able to remove the compressor and wash it with the pressure wash. It looks a lot better, although I forgot to take pictures of it! Will have them tomorrow.

When I found the system was not cooling, I knew it was time to check the pressure. The charging port was a total rusted mess. It defied every effort I made to open it, including using the torch to heat the plug up. This was admittedly dangerous with the system charged, but I was conservative with the heat. In the end, the screw slot broke away.

After that happened, I used a Supco 'Bullet' self-tapping valve on one of the lines to hook up the gauges. The room was very hot and the pressure should have been in the 90 - 100 PSI range. There was about 50 PSI. Charge is gone.

Now, I have to say - I heard this running and saw the evaporator cold when I picked it up. There was no hallucination involved, I promise!

So after finding this, I took the compressor out and pressure washed it. Then, took the evaporator out and found out that the hardware holding it to the cabinet was loose and broken. That undoubtedly allowed it to bounce around more than it should have.

The charging port was a mangled mess. I had to drill it out and make a new plug. That was an awful job, but in the end I now have a plug which uses an allen key instead of the screwdriver that strips out so easily.

Yes. It's a calamity of epic proportions, isn't it. Oh the humanity!

Today I got the compressor all cleaned up. Amazing what the pressure washer, and a little paint can do! Pictures attached.

Next, I found a very dangerous modification done by a previous owner sometime in the past. They had moved the control from the rear of the fridge, to directly inside the evaporator!  That meant that you could reach inside the evaporator and touch live wires!  The original design has a shaft and the control on the back. I went back to this design for safety and reliability. The extension is made from 5/16" steel automotive brake line.

Once the compressor was in place, I pulled it into a vacuum for about an hour. After that, I put in two 10 oz cans of R152A. It ended up being too much. I didn't weigh how much was taken back out, but after recovering two or three times, in 15 second intervals, it started to cool properly. More explanation of the symptom in the video, as well

More details here:

But I am so delighted I got frost today! :)

Raph, thanks for the reassurance. I believe the comment about showing off was a misunderstanding on the part of both me and a friend. I almost edited out that part of the video. But again, you really don't know what others are thinking about you without discussing it.

There have been so many sad stories of people who have antique appliances and can not get them repaired. They lament about how all the service people refuse to work on them and say "nobody fixes these" or say the shops tell them "it can't be fixed" or some such rubbish. It seems like a good thing to share the fact they CAN be fixed - and it's not really all that hard.

Yeah, I need to fabricate the fan exhaust flue. It seems the design of this fridge is for the air to be drawn in at the back (at the very bottom) and discharge upward through that flue. Without the flue in place, the hot air will go against the wall, and a lot of it will go back downward and recirculate through the condenser.

My other Westinghouse has the compressor on top. It has a flue for the condenser air intake. That one is (as you said) insulated on the back on the inside. It's that same soft "flocked" material they used for noise reduction inside the cabinet.

On this one, it seems the flue mounting holes stop about halfway up. The lines going into the top part aren't painted. There is a sort of decorative steel cover over them. It seems that the parts from halfway up were designed to be visible. It does look like mounting holes exist all the way to the top in the pictures, but this is just an illusion from some rust spots on the paint, I believe.

Hi Ken, just a quick reply. The show off comment I told about verbally in the video. The comment came from someone I know in real life who also watches my videos and the comment was not via Internet communication.

I really do appreciate the support and votes of confidence that my videos are constructive to watch.

More on the fridge later, busy at the moment!

Details!  Got a few details sorted today.

First, this box arrived from fellow antique appliance enthusiast wiskybill. (Thanks!)  It has a Westinghouse fan motor from a dehumidifier; and a motor start relay. This is perfect since I am missing the Westinghouse motor relay for this fridge.

The relay. It had the same exact relay inside it as the one in my Deluxe Westinghouse. Should work nicely!

I modified a box to house the Ranco replacement temperature control, the motor start relay, and a terminal strip.

The cords have strain reliefs. Those came from Lowe's for use with outdoor boxes and Romex cable.

Got the light in place. The socket needed some soldering internally. The rivets had popped apart. I replaced them with small brass screws, and then soldered the screws in place. Also, put new MTW wire for the light circuit. No shoddy wiring here!

All I need to do is get a box cover for the box, so that it has a finished look. And then, of course, the rest of the cabinet is in need of quite a bit of work with the paint condition and all.

It's interesting the lengths Westinghouse went to, trying to minimize the noise. The bottom of the fridge had wood baffles in it, with flocking on the surfaces to absorb the sound. It also had the hot air exhaust flue that went on the back. That would have had some sort of insulation in side it, also for noise abatement.