Repair and replacement of the refrigerator compressor: step by step instructions with photos

You can repair the refrig­er­a­tor your­self, but for this you need to have cer­tain skills and knowl­edge. An impor­tant part of the prepa­ra­tion for the repair is diag­nos­tics, and for this you need to know the prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion of the refrig­er­a­tor. Let’s try to fig­ure out how the scheme of oper­a­tion of this com­mon house­hold device is orga­nized.

Refrigerator operation scheme

The refrig­er­a­tor can be divid­ed into three large com­po­nents. The fail­ure of one unit makes the entire refrig­er­a­tor inop­er­a­ble, but does not affect the work­ing con­di­tion of oth­er ele­ments. The freez­er con­sists of an evap­o­ra­tor, a con­denser and a com­pres­sor. The com­pres­sor includes a relay and a motor.

The sys­tem of work is closed. The refrig­er­ant is pumped out of the evap­o­ra­tor by means of a com­pres­sor, and then sup­plied by it under high pres­sure to the con­denser. In the con­denser, it under­goes cool­ing, which pro­motes the tran­si­tion from a gaseous state to a liq­uid state, and then again moves to the evap­o­ra­tor, drain­ing nat­u­ral­ly. So the work is repeat­ed con­tin­u­ous­ly.

Unlike oth­er com­po­nents, the com­pres­sor is not con­stant­ly on. It comes into oper­a­tion by a sig­nal from the tem­per­a­ture sen­sor when the tem­per­a­ture in the refrig­er­a­tor exceeds the per­mis­si­ble lim­it. In this case, the relay dri­ves the motor, as a result of which the com­pres­sor begins to per­form its work­ing func­tion. When the tem­per­a­ture begins to cor­re­spond to the norm, the relay turns off.

Compressor health check

The first exter­nal sign of a com­pres­sor mal­func­tion is an increase in tem­per­a­ture in the refrig­er­a­tor com­part­ment, up to its defrost­ing. Before you start repair­ing the com­pres­sor with your own hands, you need to fig­ure out what exact­ly the mal­func­tion of this device is. Get­ting to the com­pres­sor is not so easy — it is her­met­i­cal­ly sealed by a cas­ing, where it is in oil.

Most com­pres­sors have a sim­i­lar device. The main com­po­nents are the motor and the start­ing relay. The relay clos­es when a sig­nal is received from the sen­sor and starts the motor. If the motor does not start, then the sys­tem is not func­tion­ing. In most cas­es, the prob­lem with an idle com­pres­sor lies pre­cise­ly in the motor. In such a sit­u­a­tion, it is required to install a new motor, a com­plete replace­ment of the refrig­er­a­tor com­pres­sor is need­ed a lit­tle less often. Let’s ana­lyze the cas­es when it is eas­i­est to repair and replace the refrig­er­a­tor com­pres­sor.

Current and resistance test

The cause of the mal­func­tion can be a cable, it is not so rare that a banal break becomes a source of seri­ous prob­lems. Replac­ing the cable is the eas­i­est sit­u­a­tion to repair. In any case, before start­ing any work with your own hands, you need to check the cur­rent and resis­tance so as not to get injured.

To check the resis­tance, you need to find a place with­out paint or wipe it off a lit­tle with your own hands. Attach a mul­ti­me­ter to the con­tact and to the case, the device should not show any val­ues, oth­er­wise it is quite dan­ger­ous to con­tin­ue repair­ing the refrig­er­a­tor com­pres­sor with your own hands. When work­ing with the motor and the start­ing relay, pre­cau­tions must be observed.

To check the cur­rent, you need a work­ing relay, that is, before start­ing the tests, you must be sure that it is work­ing. It is most con­ve­nient to check the cur­rent with a mul­ti­me­ter, where the con­tact is made with tongs. With an engine pow­er of 140 W, the cur­rent is 1.3 amperes. The ratio of val­ues ​​remains the same for oth­er indi­ca­tors of engine pow­er.

Causes of malfunctions

All mal­func­tions in the oper­a­tion of the device can be divid­ed into two types. In the first case, every­thing works well at first glance, that is, the motor is buzzing, the light is on. The rea­son may be a refrig­er­ant leak, it is quite easy to check this with your own hands. It is enough to touch the capac­i­tor, it should be very hot. In the event of a refrig­er­ant leak, the con­denser will be at room tem­per­a­ture. The sec­ond com­mon cause is a break­down of the ther­mo­stat, that is, a sig­nal about an increase in tem­per­a­ture sim­ply does not arrive.

If the refrig­er­a­tor does not turn on at all, then in 20% of cas­es the prob­lem comes down to a motor break­down. If the motor is work­ing, but it is nec­es­sary to repair the refrig­er­a­tor com­pres­sor with your own hands, you need to sequen­tial­ly check the main ele­ments — the tem­per­a­ture sen­sor and the relay. Each device should be replaced if it breaks down. If every­thing works well, you need to change the com­pres­sor itself, we will tell you how to do it your­self.

How to replace the compressor?

To repair the com­pres­sor with your own hands, you need to pre­pare the appro­pri­ate tools:

• fre­on stor­age;
• valves for pierc­ing and selec­tion;
• burn­er.

It is rec­om­mend­ed to use an oxy-propane burn­er. Now you need to dis­con­nect the device from the elec­tri­cal net­work, free it from food and box­es with bars, and then pro­ceed with the repair work.

The com­pres­sor must be pulled out and slight­ly lift­ed and the fill­ing pipe bro­ken. The device starts for five min­utes, dur­ing which the fre­on com­plete­ly pass­es into the con­denser. A pierc­ing valve is con­nect­ed to which a hose from the cylin­der is con­nect­ed. The valve is unscrewed for 30 sec­onds, this time is enough to col­lect all the gas.

Instead of a fill­ing pipe, it is nec­es­sary to sol­der a cop­per pipe, it is for this pur­pose that a burn­er is used, but you can also use an ordi­nary sol­der­ing iron. Then, an inci­sion sev­er­al cen­time­ters long is made on the cap­il­lary expander, then the tube breaks, and the fil­ter is sol­dered from the con­denser.

Now you need to com­plete­ly dis­con­nect the com­pres­sor from the pipes (most often there are two of them — to pres­sur­ize and suck out excess gas), that is, the com­pres­sor must be unsol­dered. To install a new com­pres­sor, you must repeat all the steps in reverse order. After all work, make sure that the relay works. If the launch was suc­cess­ful, then every­thing was done cor­rect­ly.

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