After having repaired the leak in the tubing that joined the copper tubing
from the compressor to the aluminum tubing from the evaporator with liberal
usage of high-quality self-stick (no adhesive) rubber electrical tape, my
refrigerator has been functioning normally for over a year. It's been doing a
great job keeping my beer, wine and perishable produce fresh.

But, just recently over the past month or so it has been acting up. It starts
to compress and then acts like it is overloaded and the compressor runs faster
and gets louder and the fan runs faster but the compression pretty much ceases
to compress as evidenced by the voltage on the volt meter jumping up about a
volt. Then it will cycle off and then back on and do the same thing over and
over. Sometimes it will work for a minute, sometimes five minutes sometimes
ten and then back to a minute. No rhyme or reason to it. Needless to say the
box doesn't get as cold as it should be getting. Almost the same symptoms as
would be the case if it had too much gas pressure to contend with. I checked
the pressure of the refrigerant several time and it has remained at the
correct specs. (at least there are no leaks)

What next? I did notice that the spade connectors at the yellow (ground) and
red (positive) leads to the control box unit got hot at times if I touched
them. Arching perhaps and losing the required voltage to the rest of the unit
so the diagnostic unit sensed low voltage and shut down the compressor? Maybe
so.

So I just turned it off at the breaker and pulled the spade connections. I
squeezed the female spade connectors (on the wires) together a little tighter
and plugged them back in. They slid on hard while they had slid off quite
easy. Perhaps the vibration over the years wore the female and male spade
connectors enough that they got loose and were commencing to arc and/or make a
poor connection?

At any rate, since I crimped the connectors tighter it hasn't missed a beat.

I am just soooo freaking smart!!! Perhaps this might assist somebody else who
has been experiencing the same or similar symptoms.


--
Sir Gregory