I could kick myself. I'm defrosting my wife's grandfather's old Frigidaire refrigerator and I was attempting to speed up the process and chipping away at the ice and poked a hole in what I guess is the evaporator coil(?).

The minute I did it a whooshing sound came out with super cold air.

I know I'm stupid and shouldn't have poked at it. I know that.

The question now is where do I go from here? Is it repairable? I can see the hole. I'm wondering if it could be soldered or something. This fridge is really important to our family. I'd hate to lose it.

I've googled and I really haven't found anywhere to go for help. The only advice I've seen is don't go chipping at ice.

Please help.

Know any in Houston?

We've got a 62' Frigidaire that is still running. They sure made stuff to last back then. Until some Vandal or Visigoth comes along and destroys it.

Seriously though, hope you can get it fixed. I can imagine how distressing that was.

I did this on my kegerator. I was able to fix the puncture with JB weld and then recharge the system. I had to add a service cap to charge the system since it was a closed system that wasn't designed to be recharged.
8 years later it is still running

I think they sell like half round copper pieces to solder over holes.

You will have to install a low pressure service port to fill up the system. Those don't have to be solder one, but that is now a point of leaking in the future.

The potentially harder challenge is finding R12, if that's what's inside originally.

~egon

That's going to be a tough one. I'm pretty sure those coils if you want to call them that are aluminum. I'm really good at soldering copper, copper to brass and copper to steel but I've never been able to solder any kind of aluminum to anything. I have a friend that tig welds aluminum at his job but even then the stuff he welds is thicker than that.
I have a source for r12 cans if you find someone that can fix the leak. Jb welds May be your only option and I'm not sure how that would work.

Could you JB weld one of those half round copper pieces over the hole? Not the most professional way, but at least it keeps you from getting epoxy inside the coil?

I contacted an appliance guy from tomball but haven't heard anything back yet. I gotta get this thing fixed. My wife is being incredibly gracious but I'd really like to fix this for her.

aggiedent said:

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We've got a 62' Frigidaire that is still running. They sure made stuff to last back then.

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Agreed. We had one up at work from the '50s and the thing just wouldn't die. Sure, the gaskets were shot and the guys in the shop treated it like crap, but it was still running as of 4 years ago.

I'm sure it had the original compressor and I doubt it was ever recharged with freon, because it's not like they actually put service ports on household refrigerators.

It seems that today's models will crap out long before that, doesn't it?

OP. Don't feel too bad -- I did the exact same thing on another old refrigerator we had up at work. I think the lazy procedure we tried involved putting a clamp-on valve on the low side, drawing a slight vacuum, using some epoxy (solder might have been better) on the hole, and recharging.

Those models used R-12 freon, which is pretty pricey stuff these days. But, it doesn't take much.

BTW, the clamp-on valve was OK, but a soldered valve wouldn't have eventually leaked.

I did learn a lesson - let the damn thing defrost completely and don't be impatient!

I had a refrigerator guy come out today. Fixing the hole seems to be the easy part. The difficult one is recharging it. Below is the "port". It's all steel. The brass fitting is too big to fit in there so I may have to find a machine shop. anyone know of one?

I prayed that this guy would be a little more inquisitive. But we'll see. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.

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The difficult one is recharging it. Below is the "port". It's all steel.

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Try plan 'B'. Surely there is some copper line running back to the compressor from the (inside) evaporator coil that is accessible.

If you've got room, have them install a clamp-on charging valve on that copper line and evacuate and re-charge the system from there. That's the 'low' side. You'll rarely install a value on the 'high' side with these residential refrigerators.

Given the age and simplicity of those old systems, I'd charge it using the 'beer can cold' method, which is the stock-in-trade of old-school shade-tree refrigeration guys.

You're not looking for textbook perfection here. You just need to get the machine running and back in service.

I don't believe there's any copper on the thing. I think it's all steel.