I have an old Kenmore 31.1 cubic ft. manual defrost upright freezer, model #7293130. I have had it unplugged forabout 4 1/2years. I plugged it in a couple of days ago and left it on for about 4 hours and discovered it wasn't cold inside. I can hear the compressor running and the lines on the back arecold but the coils inside, that the racks are attached to, are not cold. There are 2lines on the back of the freezer, 1 for the freon and a very thin line that goes inside and is attachedto the bottom rack. That small line forms frost on it, so I know the compressor is working and that there is freon.These 2 lines have a black foam-likecover over them and at the top, where they go into the freezer, that foam has melted. It's gooey and very sticky. I removed as much as I could get to. The rest of the foam is fine. It has broken off in a few places but it is still foam, not this sticky mess like at the top. The freezer has never been in an environment hot enough to melt that foam and I'm wondering how it melted. Can freon get hot enough to melt it? That's probably a dumb question. I did some searching online before I found this site and read that metal shavings can clog the freon line. That sounds like what is going on here but the last time I used the freezer it was working fine. Any ideas on what the problem might be??

The smaller line is your cap tube that runs to the evaporator in the freezer, if that is just frosted up at the inlet of the evaporator, you have a refrigerant leak. The old fridge uses r-12 as a refrigerant. Time to send it to the scrap heap.

Greg

Thank you for your reply.

I'm sure sorry to hear that. I just love this old freezer and hate to lose it. I bought it used in 1995 and to the best of my knowledge that line has always frosted over in the places where the foam covering is missing. I thought it was suppose to do that!! LOL

Thanks again.