Hello all, I'm the owner of this unit and wanted to give David a public shout out for getting it running again. He fixed it in two days and then let it run for a week before I picked it up. It's been running ever since and is extremely cold and extremely quiet; more quiet than it was originally which is saying something. I sanded the top down and filled the hammer marks with bondo and sanded it again; then etched it all over with metal etching solution and painted it with a couple of coats of high gloss appliance enamel. I sent pictures to David and it looks as it did before except even better because he salvaged the manufacturer's plate which I reinstalled. That had driven me crazy ever since I purchased the unit because it was completely painted over. Now everything looks correct. I'd encourage David to shoot a video of all the refrigerators he has in his shop with some narrative as it's quite a nice museum; I was there at least an hour as he gave me the tour and it was very cool. Thanks to the Monitor Top forum for getting us together!
Thanks Alan! I'm pleased to have been able to get this going and helped you improve the looks beyond how it was when you purchased it! I still can't get over the missing top gasket and sandblasting grit in the insulation. That just 'takes the cake' as they say. You would think that people who make their livelihood solely with antique appliance restoration would be more conscientious with areas which will eventually be seen by the owner. This field is highly reputation driven as you might imagine. As for the sound level; it is possible that the poor solder connection was gradually allowing air into the system for many years, causing the unit to have higher and higher discharge pressures and noise levels. That happened gradually over time. The elimination of the air and replenishment of refrigerant brought it back to "normal" sound levels. From experience I can say your Monitor Top, after repairs, sounds identical to other CK machines in good working order. I would love to do a "shop tour" but as you saw, there are several items which belong to other people. Some of them have requested privacy / no online discussion of their projects. I respect that and would want to honor my agreement with them. So at this time, I'm not going to be able to show all in the shop in one tour. Virtually every fridge of mine has its own group of videos showing how I came to acquire it and how it was repaired / restored. All of them have been shared on the forum or Facebook groups. I'm publishing them for searchability on RU-vid; one by one after review.
I'm glad you didn't give up hope in getting your fridge working again. you sure found the right person to do it. I hate seeing stuff like this get scrapped
@@willthetrill4849 Hi Will, I'm pretty militant about restoring things to original condition and very patient, so that helped in this repair journey. The people at the Monitor Top forum were all incredibly helpful and responsive; I was also very lucky to have David reach out, as he's phenomenal and relatively close-by. If anyone has an old refrigerator that needs repair, he is definitely the man!
(This is Tom, not Sandra.) Great videos David!! I'm glad you were able to fix this unit for the customer. You are a true businessman and a real, caring human being. May GOD bless you and your business, sir. You are a true Christian!!! Thank you!!!
It's sad to me, seeing this damage come from a professional shop. There is actually a market for nonfunctional but cosmetically attractive Monitor Tops. They know about this and should have avoided damaging it. Had the owner allowed the previous shop to obtain him another unit, they could have sold his defunct one for a static display. I truly and honestly can't understand the rationale behind this damage. One likely scenario is that some employee of that company lost their patience and did this damage in anger. There is a certain degree of trust involved with leaving an antique (or anything) with another. I'm always acutely aware of that and worry about things happening to someone else's property while it's here.
Hello, can a top monitor fridge like this be tipped on its side to transport? I found one on Craigslist for free and would like to get it, thanks for the help!
No, it can't be tipped! The cooling unit just sits on the cabinet by gravity. It will fall off if tipped. You'll break the lines. The top assembly needs to be taken ofd the cabinet if you need to lay the cabinet on its side.
That's insane. Like finding an SS396 camaro in a barn and you don't know how to adjust points and replace the fuel pump diaphragm so you just start beating all over the body with crowbars. I know it's normally not right to talk bad about businesses online but people really need to know not to take their stuff to the original repair guy or the last repair guy. Totally nuts
It's terrible! I wasn't there when it happened, so I don't want to say the name of the business. However if you contact me privately I will be happy to tell you the whole story as it was given to me by the owner of this unit. Go to my channel page, in the "About" tab and you will see contact info.
Yes! These are very quiet when operating correctly! General Electric put a huge amount of engineering into them to ensure they were quieter than the competition of the day.
