I recently picked up an old, but free, chest freezer from Craigslist in hopes to convert it into a kegerator. After picking it up and plugging it in, it showed all the symptoms of having a start relay, but after letting it continuously try to start for 10 minutes the compressor finally started. I could here the refrigerant running through the walls of the chest, occasionally making a noise similar to the sound of a flush going through the walls of your house. I let it run for about 45 minutes and it never got cold.

Now I just removed the burnt out start relay and all the terminals had continuity. But I am afraid to waste my money by buying a start relay for a freezer that has an issue with its internal cooling system. Could the previous lack of cooling the one time it turned on be attributed to the start relay?