[honest_abe]

I bought a used Hotpoint CTX18 for use as a second refrigerator. It had a little mold and rust but was operating at the guy's house. He knew nothing about it since he bought the house with the refrigerator already there. We moved it a few miles to my place and set it up in garage. I cleaned it up and it looked in pretty good shape but still had some rust. Some of the screws on the front of the case were rusty so I bought some stainless steel ones and replaced them. At this point we had not turned it on.

We left the door ajar and went on a two week trip. When I got back, I used a paste of baking soda and white vinegar to clean more of the remaining rust inside the unit and on the door. I then used a wet rag to wipe out the paste.

I then turned on the unit for the first time and it appeared to be working fine. After a few hours, the freezer read 19° and the refrigerator 45°. At this point we put the drawers and shelves back in and put some bread in the freezer.

Later we noticed the freezer temperature was 40° and I saw that the GFCI to which it was connected had tripped. It would repeatedly trip when set. I unplugged the refrigerator and reset the GFCI.

The next day, I shut off the fridge, plugged it in and noticed the light was back on in the fridge. As soon as I turned on the fridge, the GFCI tripped. I then ran an extension to another GFCI (separate circuit) and the same thing happened. Then I ran the extension to a non-GFCI circuit. Again the fridge light was on and when I turned on the unit, I heard no sound from the refrigerator. I assume it suddenly stopped working.

All circuits were 20A with nothing else connected to GFCI or its branch outlets. No water line goes to the refrigerator. Note that NEC requires GFCI protection for refrigerators in a garage.

I paid $60 for the refrigerator so I don't want to spend a lot of money fixing this old unit.