The Fridge

 When we bought Ziggy, the fridge worked on Mains, 12volt and gas. After a couple of trips earlier this year, we noticed that the EHU no longer worked. (It took a while to realise this as the the fridge automatically switches power sources - and of course the gas is generally running when we are parked up).

Being logical, I started with checking all the fuses and then looked at the back of the fridge



First thing I noticed was that there was an awful lot of corrosion / damage - some terminals were replaced and I had a liberal spray with WD40.

(This was while we were in France, and is probably why the cover panel vanished quicker than an asylum seeker - I have already written on how I made a new cover).

I then took - after a lot of advice and pointers from assorted FarceBook forums - Laika Owners group, and Fiat Ducato Motorhome Group, along with two forums Motorhome Facts and Motorhome Craic - the second of these being for a specific reason - more on that later.

One thing that I did find on the back of the fridge, when checking the continuity on the fridge was


So, a lead had actually rusted off - this was fixed with the subtle application of a scotch pad clean on the element to make a good contact, and having stripped the wire clean that was attached with a jubilee clip.

After this, I tried to start the fridge on electrickery - after I switched it on I could hear a CLICK come from the top of the fridge.

From Motorhome craic I had read of a chap called Paolo, off Camper Online who makes replacement boards… I will not share his contact details publicly at his request but his user name is Scubido - I sent him a message with my WhatsApp number and we chatted via Google Translate - all in, a new built replacement board with new control board would be £200 - a large chunk of that being carriage costs thanks to sodding Brexit.

By coincidence, a cracking chap called Chris Oneillings had condemned his RM6505 fridge as the back had rotted out - he message me and asked if I wanted the brains of it - a box of bits arrived in the post - little sod will not even let me send him a bottle - Cheers Chris.



So, time to get to work - front cover of microwave off, microwave out and top of fridge exposed




The control panel mount at the front of the fridge had been off before and some bright spark had used screws with too large heads to remount - no way they were going to come out, so my friend Mr Dremel came to play


I swapped the brain over - literally lead by lead but the colour codes did all match up. I then reconnected the main and turned the fridge on - no mechanical noise and after half an hour the fridge was chilling. I went to try to alter the temperature but my old controller was not allowing me to change it - Chris had sent me his old one so I swapped them over and success:




I then reassembled the cabinet, though the control panel is pinched in only - there is no way that I can get the old screws off!
Lastly, I examined the old brain, and even though I don’t the correct name it is easy to see what resistor is blown

So - all in all a great outcome my thanks to all that helped


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DIY panel

Image
 Many people have commented that I am a very careful Red Sea Pedestrian, so when we lost the outer cover panel from the fridge, I checked the cost of a replacement - and then started plotting…. I was reliably informed that the cost of the replacement was a lot - so I started to look for what I actually needed. I found a 3mm thick white gloss sheet on Amazon for 20 drinking vouchers, and I also sourced a selection of well nuts that I knew would be needed to safely secure the panel when completed. Additionally, I sourced a large cardboard box from Lidl. By chance I had a grille still in its packaging from a project a couple of years ago - a new one would cost around £10 from amazon I believe. The card board bos was flattened and then, with the aid of a set square, metre long rule and and craft knife - and the assistance of Number One Son a template was made. Once the template was made, and a good fit obtained the we moved the template over too the acrylic sheet NOTE - the plastic wra...
Read more

Engine Tweaks

Image
 One thing that I have noticed with Ziggy is the difference the 2.8 JTD engine makes - its less frenetic with gear changes than the old normally aspirated 2.5 engine that was up and down the gearbox in hilly territory like a bride's nightie. But, the engine is a tad thirstier - not by much but..... So I started looking and thinking about getting the engine mapped fully - something that I have done to good effect on my Aprilia 1000 in the past. I started looking closely into it, and discovered plug in box made by BlueSpark -   https://bluesparkautomotive.com/ . I read further and ordered There are, for my model of engine three choices. Please note that you need to be very specific with regards to the engine - there are multiple variants of the same thing so 2.8JTD is not enough. Look on the VIN plate at the front of the engine bay: Note the line that states MOTORE - 8140.43s - that's the information that tells me that it was indeed one of the first JTD engines so a Bluespark co...
Read more