New Member - Help Wanted (United Sound & Signal P-384 Visi-Cool Pepsi Cooler)

[John Clarke]

Hi,

I have my first vintage cooler, and am obsessed with it. I've had it for maybe 60 days, and my extremely patient and gracious (yet also contrarily smoking hot) wife has already complained about my obsession.

The cooler is gorgeous, and after installing a new power cord, fires right up and cools beautifully.

However, I'm missing a couple of parts, and would appreciate any help that might be offered. The front bottom exterior blue sheet metal panel is missing, and so is the right side white sheet metal inside evaporator cover. Also, at some point the ballast and starter for the single F25T12/CW fluorescent bulb were cut out for an unknown reason, and I need to know which parts to buy, and the location that the factory installed them in. The grey door seals are in fine working order, but they're covered with a reddish brown persistent sticky goo, like cola concentrate (the wire shelves were partially covered in it), and I'd love to know either a good product to use to clean that substance off, or a source for replacement (having been raised by an antiques/collectibles dealer, I wil bend over backward to restore rather than replace). I tried De-Solv-it a for a couple of minutes a couple of times, but it was EXTREMELY slow going.

If anyone can offer me any advice at all, I would be extremely grateful.

Thank you,

John

P.S. I tried to upload a photo 5 times from my iPad, taking screenshots from my photo library and cropping them, to no avail.

[John Clarke]

I figured out how to resize a photo. The first time that I tried posting an image onto this thread, it said that I had a 400KB image size limit. Now it says 100KB, so here's a very fuzzy 96KB image of my new cooler:

[MoonDawg]

          Nice cooler John, that picture is the closest I have ever seen of one of these.
          I use the glass cleaner in the foamy aerosol can, to help melt the syrup deposits.

[John Clarke]

          Nice cooler John, that picture is the closest I have ever seen of one of these.
          I use the glass cleaner in the foamy aerosol can, to help melt the syrup deposits.

Thanks so much Glen! I really appreciate the advice! I have a couple of cans of Sprayway ammonia-free glass cleaner that I'll try. It shouldn't damage the Plexiglas doors that it comes in contact with.

John

[Fire708]

Nice cooler, very unique.

I used the same glass cleaner that moonDawg mentioned and then a sponge with hot water. I also let the cleaner soak for a while.

[John Clarke]

Nice cooler, very unique.

I used the same glass cleaner that moonDawg mentioned and then a sponge with hot water. I also let the cleaner soak for a while.

Good confirmation, thank you!

[Sarman47]

Nice looking cooler John. I like the look of it.

I am sure some of the sponsors on here carry the ballast and starter. Or maybe a local hardwear store.

[sc1101]

Very neat cooler! I saw one at the Chicago show. Most of them I have seen are in poor condition with lots of cracks in the plastic. Yours looks to be in good condition. Good luck with the parts hunt I hope you find them all!

[John Clarke]

Nice looking cooler John. I like the look of it.

I am sure some of the sponsors on here carry the ballast and starter. Or maybe a local hardwear store.

Thanks Sarman, I sure hope that they do! I'd love to buy some parts from a sponsor on this site. I just hope that someone can show me where that ballast and starter were mounted, and which ballast was used.

[tkaz]

Welcome to the forum!  I'm not sure if the sponsors have the ballast and starters and socket that you need, I checked and didn't see them.  Here are the links to the parts on Amazon to get you started:

Ballast: http://www.amazon.com/Advance-LC-25-TP-I-Fluorescent-Ballast-Preheat/dp/B003MRLY4E
Starter: (FS-25, can be found at Lowes/HD) http://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-42512-FS-25-Ballast-Starter/dp/B000UX5YL2
Starter Socket: http://www.amazon.com/Leviton-396-Fluorescent-Lampholder-Stripped/dp/B003AU6DM6

I'd look around for the mounting holes, there should be two each for the ballast and starter socket, located somewhat close to each other.

[John Clarke]

Welcome to the forum!  I'm not sure if the sponsors have the ballast and starters and socket that you need, I checked and didn't see them.  Here are the links to the parts on Amazon to get you started:

Ballast: http://www.amazon.com/Advance-LC-25-TP-I-Fluorescent-Ballast-Preheat/dp/B003MRLY4E
Starter: (FS-25, can be found at Lowes/HD) http://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-42512-FS-25-Ballast-Starter/dp/B000UX5YL2
Starter Socket: http://www.amazon.com/Leviton-396-Fluorescent-Lampholder-Stripped/dp/B003AU6DM6

I'd look around for the mounting holes, there should be two each for the ballast and starter socket, located somewhat close to each other.

Thanks for looking that up for me tkaz! There doesn't seem to be any room in the bulb compartment up top. Neither is there room in the channel between the doors. I haven't been able to locate any screws or holes in the compressor compartment underneath. That's why I need to talk to someone with the same machine, I guess.