| The Norcold has worked great for us for the last 3 years with no problems, but I still wanted to upgrade to the residential. We did special order our Phaeton and it was a no cost upgrade to the residential refrigerator, I chose not to get that option. I can still kick myself for not getting it when we order the Phaeton. Even though we have the latest recall done on our Norcold 2012M 4 door RV refrigerator, I was still worried about a fire. So during a little downtime back in our old home town, I decided to do the install. |
| A friend of mine did this upgrade last year and he gave me a few ideas on what to do. So for one thing I knew it would be a tight fit to get the old RV refrigerator out the door and get the new one in, so I took his advice and decided to get the old one out and the new one in through the window next to my computer desk, which is behind the drivers seat So I needed to move the computer desk. |
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| There were 4 screws holding the desk to the slide. So I removed the bottom drawer and removed the screws |
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| Now the valance needed to be removed. I removed the side screws first. |
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| Then I removed the screws in the top of the valance. Now these screws are tough to see, but they came out easy. |
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| Now that the valance is off, I can get to the screws that hold the window into the frame. |
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| Next I needed to remove the doors of the existing refrigerator. First I removed the upper/freezer doors by removing the screws that hold the hinges. |
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| I then removed the bottom/refrigerator doors the same way. |
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| The refrigerator with the doors and the middle instrument cluster removed. The instrument cluster has a ribbon cable that you unplug from the front panel. |
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| I then went outside and removed the electric plugs from the 110v power and the inverter. The ice maker is plugged into the inverter. |
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| I then uplugged the 12 volts wires that go to the control panel. |
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| I turned off the propane from the main tank and then removed the propane line from the refrigerator. I capped the line with a 3/8" flared plug. |
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| Next I turned off the water supply line to the ice maker and disconnected the water line at the valve |
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| When I went to move the refrigerator out, I found out that Tiffin had put screws in the rear of unit and secured it to the bottom plywood support. I accessed them in the same access hole that the plugs, propane connection, etc. were in. Once I removed the screws the refrigerator moved out with no problems. |
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| Once the refrigerator was removed I will have to remove the foam at the top of the hole and the wood baffle in the rear. This removal will give me enough room for the new refrigerator. |
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| After removing the baffle, foam and metal deflector I then used the old metal deflector plate and a piece of foam to seal off the roof vent. I cut the foam and metal deflector to 5' x 24" and used sealer on the metal. I then shoved the metal up to the roof vent and then the foam. The foam will work for insulating the hole in the roof area. I then cut 2 1/2" of wood from the top frame. This will give me the 65 1/2" that I need for the refrigerator. In retrospect, I should have made it 3 inches and removed it from the bottom. I will have had to rebuild the support platform, but would have been a little lower for use. I then removed the window and set it off to the side and waited for the Lowe's guys to deliver the new residential refrigerator. |
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| First we removed the old RV refrigerator through the window and the passed the new one through the window. |
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| The Lowe's guys getting the refrigerator in the opening. |
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| The new residential refrigerator installed. I helped with the lifting, so I left the picture taking to Sue. Needless to say she didn't get very many pictures. |
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| I then reconnected the water supply to the ice maker line and plugged the new refrigerator to the 110v plug. Next week I will be installing a new inverter and I will then move the plug to the inverter plug. |
| Contact email: mdidelot@didelot.com |