I just picked up an old kelvinator chest freezer. The previous owner told me that it would stay on for a while and then shut off. I turned the thermostat to the lowest setting and it seemed to run okay. After a while the compressor was hot but I figured that was because it had to cool down the whole chest from luke warm. The compressor sounded rattly at first but sounded fine this morning. It ran all night and was still cold. I switch the thermostat to a higher setting and the compressor was still warm when I checked it later.

It would not turn on from warm when I set the thermostat higher than the warmest.

Do you think I have a bad thermostat? any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks