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Fridge Fixer

Prevent your Refrigerator from Opening while Driving
Article Date: April, 2019


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If your RV contains a large residential refrigerator I'm sure you're familiar with the limitations of the door design when used in an RV application. These fridges just weren't made for travel and the doors won't stay shut when bouncing down the road, resulting in the contents of the fridge spilled out onto the floor of the RV. Numerous methods have been used to correct this and range from homemade devices such as bungee cords or blocking bars to more sophisticated methods, such as latches installed by the RV manufacturer. These methods can be cumbersome to use and are not 100% foolproof.


Our coach came with a large Samsung refrigerator with French doors and bottom pull-out freezer. Entegra Coach fitted the fridge with a pair of stainless steel latches to lock the refrigerator doors and freezer drawer in place during travel. It was a nice idea but the latches didn't always hold and vibrated from the locked position to the unlocked position. After a few hours of driving the odds were good that something was going to fly open on the next off-ramp.

At first we applied a sticky piece of Velcro over the latch to prevent the latch from opening but all this did was buy us a bit more time and we were going through Velcro tabs at a rapid pace because once they were removed they lost most of their adhesive strength. My next step was to drill the latch and insert a hairpin style safety pin to prevent the latch from moving. This wasn't bad but still not ideal. And then I found out about the Fridge Fixer.

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The Fridge Fixer

The Fridge Fixer is a slick design that allows the user to easily lock both the fridge and freezer doors in place for travel by simply inserting a plastic block key into a receptacle. Once removed it allows unencumbered access to the fridge and freezer and when in place it firmly secures the doors for travel. At $39.99 plus $4.50 it was an inexpensive solution to a continuing problem so I decided to order one.

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The Fridge Fixer consists of a set of sliding aluminum rails that are mounted between the bottom of the refrigerator doors and the top of the freezer drawer on a French door style refrigerator. These rails utilize the existing door hinge bolts to attach the rail to the refrigerator so no drilling is required. Mounted on these rails is a 3D printed plastic receiver that adjusts to the correct depth for your particular fridge. This receiver will be the receptacle for the key-like plastic block that drops in place to secure the fridge doors. The beauty of this design is that it is an easy bolt-on installation and doesn't require any permanent modification to the refrigerator. As long as you have a minimum 0.6" gap between the refrigerator doors and the freezer drawer, you can use the Fridge Fixer. It will fit most French Door refrigerators, single door fridges with a top or bottom freezer and four door French refrigerators.

Installation

Before sending in our order I measured the gap between the fridge doors and freezer drawer to make sure it met the minimum requirement of 0.6". I had plenty of room and checked the list of refrigerators on their website and found mine was not listed. The Fridge Fixer rails expand to fit various widths but the center block needs to be deep enough to extend past the doors when closed. If your fridge isn't listed you just need to measure the depth and order the correct size based on that dimension. Four different sizes are shown so I selected the one that fit my door depth and placed my order.

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The inner-most door hinge screws were temporarily removed to allow mounting of the aluminum rails.

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The two set screws at the back of the plastic block were tightened once the block was centered between the doors

The unit arrived within a couple of days so I began my installation that evening. The first step was to loosen the two adjusting screws that locked the rails in place. I then removed one screw from each door hinge, extended the aluminum rails to meet the hinges and reinserted the door hinge screws after passing them through the ends of the Fridge Fixer's aluminum rails. The rails are thoughtfully designed with countersunk holes on one side and regular flat holes on the other side so that it works with either flat head or round head hinge screws. All you have to do is reverse the head on the rails to change it over.


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Once the rails are in place, the next step is to align the receiver block. Simply locate the block so that it is centered between the two refrigerator doors and tighten the two hex head screws with the supplied Allen wrench hex key.

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The depth of the block is adjusted to just extend past the refrigerator doors

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The plastic key is easily removed and is equipped with a locking latch

Next, adjust the depth of the block so that the keyhole extends just past the doors. A center screw is turned to move the block out or in as needed. There needs to be just enough depth so that the door doesn't rattle once the key is inserted into the block but not so tight that it takes excessive effort to insert the key. I adjusted mine to barely compress the rubber door gasket.

This system works great. All we have to do is drop the tee shaped plastic key into place. The top portion of the tee extends past the refrigerator doors and prevents them from opening while the bottom stem of the tee prevents the freezer drawer from opening. The key is held firmly in place via a locking tab and a small push button release allows easy removal. Just push the button in and lift the key out and toss it in a drawer or keep it inside the fridge until you are ready to travel again.

Click Here for Complete Installation Instructions.

Source

Fridge Fixer
www.recubed.solutions



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