Refrigerator Fans Not Working

[WhittleBurner]

Thanks to all who replied. Hitting the road. Will call Norcold and GD tomorrow!

Enjoy!! And have a safe trip

[xrated]

I have a Norcold 2118, so your Norcold may be similar. Here is a pic (kind of showing) where the thermal disc is located for the fans on the rear. On mine, and probably yours, it is set to close at 130°F. And on mine, it is located right at the edge of the fin, when in my opinion, it should be closer to the actual tubing that runs through the fin. Anyway, hope this helps, and this is the upper vent cover opening and the red circle shows where the disc is located....

[Dakota]

Update: I didn’t get the fans fixed yet, but I positioned a small fan into the bottom vent blowing up and hung another small fan at the top vent pulling air out. 12 hours later the freezer is at 2 and the refrigerator at 38. It doesn’t look pretty, but it works for now. Lol.

[xrated]

Update: I didn’t get the fans fixed yet, but I positioned a small fan into the bottom vent blowing up and hung another small fan at the top vent pulling air out. 12 hours later the freezer is at 2 and the refrigerator at 38. It doesn’t look pretty, but it works for now. Lol.

My thoughts on the OEM fans that come with/on the Norcold refrigerators........"A Gnat farting produces more wind velocity".....and is likely more reliable!

[Dakota]

I have a Norcold 2118, so your Norcold may be similar. Here is a pic (kind of showing) where the thermal disc is located for the fans on the rear. On mine, and probably yours, it is set to close at 130°F. And on mine, it is located right at the edge of the fin, when in my opinion, it should be closer to the actual tubing that runs through the fin. Anyway, hope this helps, and this is the upper vent cover opening and the red circle shows where the disc is located....

Thank you! It’s about 98 out and with my improvised fans the fridge is at 35 and the freezer at 8. I’m going to look at the back later when it cools off outside.

[Teledoc]

Good morning! Plugged the camper in last week where it was stored and the refrigerator cooled off and worked great. Got it home, plugged it in and 3 hours later the refrigerator is very warm. I discovered that the fans in the back are no longer working. I've read about bypassing some thermal switch, but I have no idea where it is and whether I'd need to pull the fridge out to access it. Of course, the wood panel at the top vent prevents easy access to the fans. Our last trip of the season last year the cooling unit went out. Had it replaced. First trip of this year and no refrigerator. Yikes, what a drag. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas I'd certainly appreciate hearing them. Breakers are all good, don't see where a fuse would be that would just be for the fans. Do you think using a small house fan to blow air up from bottom vent might do the trick? I could also suspend a fan from the top vent to hopefully pull some air through. Thanks!

I also have a Norcold 1210 with upper and lower vents. I was just recently troubleshooting mine when it didn't cool one time in hot weather. Someone I know who owns an RV repair center and campground said the thermistor is a frequent fail. I would guess this is the issue in your case more than the very improbable event both fans quit working simultaneously. As mentioned, do the bypass trick to see if the fans come on. If they do, the part is pretty cheap. On my 1210 the thermistor is mounted right upper fins and easy to reach from the top vent. I also heated it with a heat gun, measured with a laser thermometer, and it tripped the fans on at 130 F and off at 115 (IIRC) which is to spec.
Here is a link to the manual: https://norcold.com/wp-content/uploa...-manual-ac.pdf
Here is a link to the Norcold guy, a useful site: https://thenorcoldguy.com/
And his related info on this topic: https://thenorcoldguy.com/norcold-re...t-cold-enough/
While I was in the upper vent, I measured all the hardboard baffle clearance distances to make sure were to spec as per the manual.
BTW, there is a bit of variance on pricing for the thermistor, should this be the culprit. As for fans, if you ever replace, there are aftermarket ones with matched specs that are far cheaper than the very high priced replacement fan.

[Conguero]

I had the same issue with a Norcold, and used a single small fan at the bottom like you said. I rigged up a piece of cardboard covered in duct tape to keep rain off the fan.

That alone kept the fridge working for a week trip in Arkansas in July.

So I think the small fan trick should keep you going.

That fan and piece of cardboard have been stored in my RV ever since.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[schulkey]

It's a Norcold 618093 DC Fan Thermostat for me (failed twice in 4 years). I can get to it from the vent at the top on the outside and have jumped it when I needed the fridge and fans to work

[Sparky1]

To improve cooling in our norcold 612 (looks very similar in back to yours) we wired two 12v 140mm computer case fans in series with the existing fans so the external thermistor turns turns on the external fans. We mounted the two new fans to a thin plywood baffle placed above and behind the upper coil. The new fans are very quiet, use very little power and pull about 48CFM each.
We placed an 80mm case fan Zalman speed controller inside the fridge blowing up into the fins from below to keep the air inside circulating.
These changes required moving the thermistor attached to the inside fins three or four fins to the left to keep the fridge from freezing the food in the refrigerator. Temps now run 30-36 in the fridge and 0-8 in the freezer. The fridge cools from 85 to normal working temps in 2-3 hours instead of 12-24 hours.

I’ll try to post pics.

[Dakota]

I also have a Norcold 1210 with upper and lower vents. I was just recently troubleshooting mine when it didn't cool one time in hot weather. Someone I know who owns an RV repair center and campground said the thermistor is a frequent fail. I would guess this is the issue in your case more than the very improbable event both fans quit working simultaneously. As mentioned, do the bypass trick to see if the fans come on. If they do, the part is pretty cheap. On my 1210 the thermistor is mounted right upper fins and easy to reach from the top vent. I also heated it with a heat gun, measured with a laser thermometer, and it tripped the fans on at 130 F and off at 115 (IIRC) which is to spec.
Here is a link to the manual: https://norcold.com/wp-content/uploa...-manual-ac.pdf
Here is a link to the Norcold guy, a useful site: https://thenorcoldguy.com/
And his related info on this topic: https://thenorcoldguy.com/norcold-re...t-cold-enough/
While I was in the upper vent, I measured all the hardboard baffle clearance distances to make sure were to spec as per the manual.
BTW, there is a bit of variance on pricing for the thermistor, should this be the culprit. As for fans, if you ever replace, there are aftermarket ones with matched specs that are far cheaper than the very high priced replacement fan.

Thank you! We just got back from our trip and tomorrow I’ll go through your message and follow the links. Since it cools with my household fan blowing up behind the refrigerator does that eliminate the thermistor as a potential problem?