Ok, this is an odd question, I know. In a nutshell, what I really need is an upright freezer less than 48" high and a capacity of at least 8 cubic feet. Before you ask, I have to have it upright. The chest orientation is out of the question for my application. 48" is a hard limit and the little 4cf ones just wouldn't be useful.

Near as I can tell, no such beast is manufactured for sale for less than a couple grand, if at all.

So I'm here to see about modifying a 10cf chest freezer. If I turn a chest freezer on end, the compressor will run without oil and die, so step one is to rotate the compressor 90 degrees to keep the up end up. My test freezer has rigid pipes connecting to the compressor, so I'm going to have to find someone with the tools and skill to either bend or cut/reattach the pipes.

If I do only that, will the evaporator and condenser coils still work in the on-end orientation? Degraded efficiency is fine - I really only need it to get down to 30 degrees and don't really care if it has to run non-stop to achieve that. It will only be in use for a max of a few hours a week.

I've seen a howto out in internet land for converting a mini fridge to a chest fridge by rotating the compressor like this, so it's possible in theory, but I don't know how doing it to a chest freezer changes things.

Any other major issues I'm missing?