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batato · Aug 25, 2008, 06:48 AM

No Cold Air was blowing. Unit (indoor) is running fine. Went Outside and Condenser Unit (Outside Big Unit) Fan is not rotating and Making a Humming noise. ALSO, the lines are covered in Frost. I opened unit and the Line by the coils is very HOT. Overall the whole unit is hot. So I grabbed the circuit breaker and pulled the fuses out (which broke the bracket holding the fuses in the process).

I was reading for answers to similar problems people are having and best I found is that I should carefully remove the Capacitor (some soda can shaped object) and replace it. Can someone with knowledge confirm this or give any information?

Hopefully someone can assist as I am currently unemployed and calling a repairman is out of the question.

esquire1 · Aug 25, 2008, 06:57 AM

If you can spin the fan and it continues to run then yes the capacitor is bad and needs to be replaced with one of same value

batato · Aug 25, 2008, 07:11 AM

Originally Posted by esquire1

If you can spin the fan and it continues to run then yes the capacitor is bad and needs to be replaced with one of same value

I just tried it... the fan will not work and it seems that loud noise is coming from the big red unit at the bottom (probably the compressor).

Also I notice one major difference. I have a thermostat with the mercury inside a little glass tube. NORMALLY when I turn the A/C unit on it will have a little spark of electricity in the glass tube. This Does NOT happen now. Does this give any indication of a different problem?

By the way it's a TRANE XE 1200 Unit

esquire1 · Aug 25, 2008, 07:37 AM

The noise is probably the compressor running and not the fan. Check and see if the compressor is hot. Check th see if you are getting voltage to the fan motor. Could ge that the motor is bad

batato · Aug 25, 2008, 07:55 AM

Thank you for replying esquire.

The compressor is very hot. I suspect it could very well be a bad motor. Everyone so far with a similar problem is able to at least manually start the fan. I can't. I called a repairman just now to ask a few questions and without seeing the unit he stated it was the motor and that it would cost me 400 bucks to replace.

Wonderful news.

esquire1 · Aug 25, 2008, 08:02 AM

If you are able to change ou yourself, go to parts house and get motor and capacitor matching the rating of the motor and will be able to repair for much less

batato · Aug 25, 2008, 05:53 PM

Just to inform...

My Uncle came by and is one of those handy people. We replaced the motor for free since he had 3 spare motors in his shed... Which by the way doesn't have to be the exact model. We had to saw off part of the shaft but the specs were practically identical (with the exception that the rotation was a bit higher on this model).

Finally the time to turn it on came. Walla!! Nothing... no noise no humming just a condenser unit that was dead as a doornail. It turned out to be the RELAY. Again he had like 8 relays laying around in his shed and bingo... it worked! Once again the relay is totally different. He put in a commercial unit relay and threw in a time delay to help preserve the compressor.

So if anyone has a similar problem check the relay. It did not look burnt out until we took it off and examined it closely.

Oh one last word... I knew NOTHING about A/C units this morning... today I feel confident working on mine when it breaks again. I can say that it would not have been possible without the help of my uncle since he is comfortable with wiring. I would strongly suggest to find a friend that can help who knows about wiring. I came close to touching a live 220 volt wire if my uncle didn't scream at me.

Also 4 local repairmen were called for quotes. The cheapest price for replacing the motor was $600.00 with the highest some crook that wanted $1100.00 to replace the motor, capacitor and fan cause he refused to just replace the motor. BEWARE these Thieves... the motor on Grainer is selling for $137.00 and is Very easy to replace yourself.