2013 Hawk - Dometic 110L Refrigerator Removal?

[Spitfire]

I have been reading lots of posts about adding a cooling fan for a compressor refrigerator and I have thinking about how I would install one in my camper. I don't have a vent at all so I figured I would have to pull the fridge out and take a look behind it. I took a quick look yesterday and I could not figure out how the fridge is installed. There's 4 plastic round covers on the inside of the fridge which I couldn't get off which may cover the mounting screws. Is there some trick to pulling these off without tearing them up? Is that what FWC generally uses to install these fridges?

Thanks

 

[97grandby]

I can't say for sure regarding a trick for removing the screw cap covers, but I can tell you it makes a huge difference using fans and having proper venting. DrJ has the 110l fridge and has from the factory outside vents top and bottom and still made a big difference. He had it running one day with fans on and one day with the same temps and conditions sitting in his garage and it took 22% less power to keep his fridge cooled. I'm sure he will post all of his findings once he gets a chance. I put in a 65l fridge with no venting and couldn't get it to keep anything cold past 85 degrees outside. With a fridge vent and fan I was in 108 degree temp driving to overland and it kept the temp down at 37/15 degrees no problem.

 

[Bill D]

Odd, I have the same year Hawk with the same fridge. Mine came with the fan pre-installed.

Sorry, I can't help you. I can however verify that it makes a huge difference and worth installing.

 

[Terrapin]

Spitfire,
I don't know if you have addressed this issue yet but I too have a Hawk with the 110 2-way fridge and no venting.
This is wrong! There must be venting as per Dometic. Mine would overheat and cycle badly running the battery down pronto. It took two years to identify this as the core of my electrical problems ( see Attention Electrical Sleuths).
The factory finally after much grousing from me, admitted there should be exterior venting and installed 2-exterior vents behind the fridge. At that time I also installed a 4.7 x 4.7 pancake fan to the upper vent that is wired to the fridge's compressor fan. When that fan comes on to cool the condenser, the new fan also comes on blowing the heated air out the top vent.
A Dometic service tech advised me to use just one fan (not the two I was planning) to help vent the area without excessive air flow that may disturb the air pressure in the enclosure cavity. Whatever, I used one fan.

In any regard, I've not had the same electrical drain since this modification. That said, I still had trouble boondocking for more than two days and without a supplementary ice block. I have since upgraded my solar panel from 95watts to 160 watts, replaced the 10 ga wire from the truck alternator back to the camper with 4ga. wire and replaced the solar charger with Bogarts SC2030 and Trimetric TM2030 meter. This allows one to program optimum charging to the specifications allowed for your particular brand of batteries. Not to mention real monitoring of your usage and battery condition.

The upgraded wire size from the truck back more than doubled the charging amperage while running the truck and I'm just now testing the new solar panel contribution.
From my experience, these campers are under wired. Yes, it will still work if you have plenty of time. When boondocking however, there is only so much sun and even driving 6 hours a day was insufficient for us to get through the night. We did not buy a FWC camper to park at KOA every night just so we could run that darn fridge!


Sent from my iPad using Wander The West

 

[Spitfire]

I did figure out how to get the fridge out (there are indeed screws underneath the plastic caps) but I haven't done anything yet as I haven't had much time plus I've been having health issues. I'm going to take my camper off my truck in a few weeks for the winter so I'll work on it next year when I finally get to retire from work and have more time. I've used my Honda 1000 generator as needed this year.