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35-3 Refrigeration & the better half

Steve

Member III
Greetings.. I'm a new 84 E35-3 owner. One of the conditions of my better half is onboard refrigeration. The boat has the standard two iceboxes in the galley. I found the fridge OEM wiring harness for AC and DC in the SB cockpit locker. I can only assume the condenser goes in there (somewhere) along with the fenders and gear.

My quick question of anyone with OEM or better refrigeration:
(1) Where and how (protect) did the factory mount the compressor/condensing unit?
(2) Which icebox was converted?
(3) What was the type or shape of the evaporator and where in the box did they put it
(4) What was the size and type/brand they used or what has worked well for folks
(5) Any way to add more insulation to the OEM boxes other then new boxes

Sorry for all the questions, reading past posts shows a lot of love & respect for these boats, just want an edge up on doing it right the first time around!

Steve – Amazing Grace
:D
 

Sean Engle

Your Friendly Administrator
Administrator
Founder
Me too! Me too!

My 35-3's comp/cond is on the forward edge of that shelf in the stb cockpit locker (right behind the backside of the galley's dishholder). It seems to work pretty well. The unit is protected in that position, and is screwed in place. I think it's a Cold Machine unit...

The aft cooler has the unit it it (it's "L" shaped, and sits in the forward/port corner of the cooler), and I use it mostly for evening sails when we only have a little food and beer. For weekends or more I still use nice big blocks of ice.

See Ray's pictures for more on insulation (nice job, Ray...just wait until I put in my head's teak headliner though... :p ). Make sure you get one that's 12V/120V though - as mine is only 12V and I would love to be able to switch it over to shore power...

No problem on the questions - the more you ask - the more we discuss the better - that's what this is for!

//sse
 

sailingdeacon

Member III
My '87 E34 also has a unit on the forward shelf in the starboard cockpit locker - just at the bulkhead. It feeds a refrig which is the smaller of the two boxes. A second unit is installed just to the port of the rudder post on the hull. That unit feeds a refrig-freezer. Of course the 34 has different positions for the two boxes. Can't recall the mfg right now. If important I can check.
 

Brisdon

Inactive Member
In my 35-2 I installed the Frigo Boat keel cooled model. It workes really well with a fraction of the energy draw of conventional units. Frigo Boat and Isotherm both make units which are water cooled by essentially sending the freon (refrigerant) outside the vessel rather than pumping water in. The Isotherm uses a special through hull with the coolant coil inside, and the Frigo uses an external bronze bulb. The good thing about both these units besides their frugal energy consumption is that you can box them both in without ventilation concerns. The bad thing of course is that you will have to pull the boat out of the water to make the installation. I wouldn't worry for a minute what the original factory installationss were on these boats because those systems were too incompetent by current standards to want to bother revisiting them. The best system in my opinion for extended cruising is a cold plate with an engine mounted compressor. If you aren't doing extended cruising it's probably not worth that high price tag. The 12 volt Frigo that I have seems to use between 25 and 35 amps every 24 hours depending on the weather, and we get cold food (40 degrees) and a fair amount of ice for that.
 
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