OldIHC

Hi. My grandpa has an OLD International Harvester Deep Freezer. He says it cools intermittently. I would love to have it but I might be crazy. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have called five appliance repair companies and they have all said they would not work on it. I am in Texas and the freezer is in Washington State. I already have his 1956 S-120. Thx

My neighbor had one of the IHC deep freezers. When the husband died, wife asked if I wanted the freezer. We tried to move the freezer and it would not move. The insulation had filled with frozen moisture over 50+ years.
She called movers and they unplugged the freezer and left it for two weeks so it could drain. Over 100 litres went down the drain. The movers cut the monster into small pieces. The freezer fell apart because of rusting.
These old freezers are not energy efficient and because of age may not be reliable. My appliance repair friend says, moving those old monsters usually permanently kills them.

If the freezer is in good condition I would search for someone posting on Craigslist. I have a 1934 Kelvinator refrigerator and no shop would touch it because at one time it had SO2 in it for the refrigerant. I found a guy on Craigslist who flushed the system and put in R134A. Sure it isn't as efficient as today's machines, but how many people have even seen these old machines. They're **** cool to me.

Mick

Depending on how old, it may have Sulfur dioxide or Methyl formate for refrigerant. These are somewhat hazardous. If it is new enough for R-12 then you could recharge it or convert to 134a. The older refrigerants run lower pressures than R 12.
1st thing is to make sure the coils are clean.