Kung Fu Maintenance demonstrates how to repair a refrigerator compressor that suddenly stopped working or will not run.
All right, what I’ve got here is a fridge with a compressor that won’t start. Plug it in, we should hear the compressor kick on, but it’s not. Unplug it. Always want to unplug these before moving these covers.
Install the starter pack here. Each fridge is a little bit different, and there’s a couple different models. A couple different starter packs for different horsepower ratings.
It seems pretty dusty. I’ll blow this thing out when I’m finished. Here we go. There’s our clip. Gives us access to the compressor wiring.
Let’s just take all this part out. May have to bend this up that way just a little bit here. There’s our lines in. And then what you do is remove this. It should slide right out. I have to ease this thing. There we go.
That gives us access to the three prongs there. It’s just like an air conditioner. You got to start, common, and then run. Your white, usually the back one, that’s your start. And then the red is your run. And the black is your common. Common’s always on the top. Common’s usually on the top.
We don’t want anything touching here, any of these touching. So I just kind of bend the other way. Then these, you strip them off and connect one to each lead on your 3n’1 Start here, start pack for a fridge here. Now grab some wire strippers. You always want to use wire strippers for stripping wires down.
Looks like I need it to be a little bit longer than that. There we go. Twist the end. And attach your wire nuts. Actually, they’re called wire connectors now. They used to be called wire nuts years ago, but for some reason they’ve changed the name to wire connectors.
And then we’re going to need to mount this inside. So it doesn’t fall on anything. Turn this back. And we’re ready to start it up. See if she works. Plug it in. Oh yeah. Fired right up. That’s what it was. You know, the capacitor went bad already and it’s hard to start, but the starter pack started it right up.
Now then, take a wet/dry vacuum, convert it to a blower, and blow all this stuff out. Blow all the coils off. That’ll keep it going for a while. Good to go.