so 2 weeks ago i got my first machine while my wife was out of town, i paid 50$ as is, was NOT looking for a machine..it was simply outside of a nearby business i happened to drive by up on a pallet with a sign 50$ AS IS..i let it sit there for a couple days then something nagged me to go back and check on it...it was still there
story was the machine went into this warehouse when the warehouse was built and never left..was used for a long time and then sat as a "lunch cooler" for the guys then went up on a pallet and floated around the shop for a long time, aperantly it had a sister machine that was a coke product of some kind that got sold off a few years ago...as often as i drive past this place i cant say i ever saw it, keys were in the machine but its status was unknown and they said we wont even plug it in, at 50$ i figured id drag it home and worst case gut it and use it as a storage locker for my shop manuals
on getting it home i realised it was nice..really nice just a lil dirty....knowing ZERO about vending machines, but fond memorys of being a kid going into mores autp the ONLY auto parts place my parents used and my memory is of this same style machine..but maybe the wood grain model and ALWAYS getting some pepsi product out of it..tho i dont think that machine was pepsi
anyway i took it off my bike trailer and hauled it round back to my shop and started fiddling with it..dug around the net which led me here but took a week to get a gm to authorize my account, plugged it in and no air blowing but the compressor was on, and got the condenser so cold it was freezing over...the coinco was not registering nickles and was hit n miss on dimes, most of the stack wasnt vending, and a couple of the "vend lock" tabs were bent to vend empty, sometimes the stack would jamb and not vend at all, 2 shelves missing but otherwise complete not even missing the coil catch or drip tray..just a couple stack springs and the 2 shelves
i set out to do a final check before cleanup , and found a small unopened apple sauce container in the upper fan unit..pulled that and the unit started to cool, all the way down to 32deg but would fluctuate up to upper 40s ..at this point i decided it was time to do a deep cleaning pulled the stack the shelves ..everything but the cooling unit, and found its build date etc
the pics shown are PRIOR to cleaning
after much fiddling and tinkering with very little help from the net..i got the coinco working and seeing nickles, even managed to "fool" it so that it drops everything into the coin box, and while i considered "free vend" i think that takes away from the "experiance" of these machines...HOWEVER i have come up with a simple design im going to fab up later so that all coins will go thru, trigger, and then get "returned" so that i dont need to keep a stock of change neer the machine, just a single coin in the return, next i turned my attention to the stack..with it out, fixed the tabs lubed a few bits and made some adjustments, it now works like new, after 2 days of cleaning everything i even cut the seal on the glass to try and remove the calcium? deposits from the inside with neer zero luck(if anyone has a suggestion for cleaning the glass im all ears to try ANYTHING) with the glass apart if i cant get it truely cleaned ill get 2 new sheets cut and re-glue them to the double pain casing(the glue used is basicly ultra black rtv), lastly wa the cooling, and by now id gotten into this site to post questions, the t-stat was "functional" but wild, being very mechanicly inclinded i tore it apart and found the contacts were sooo worn thin that it might not be saveable, adjusting the cut points helped marginaly but didnt solve it so i picked up a cheep new t-stat for now with the plan to find a genuine ranco unit so i can put all the stock plastic parts back on it(or swap just the contacts and springs into the old unit), a new bulb was required as was a new starter for the ballast
at this point the machine hums along like it should with ZERO faults, the seals are nice, theres ZERO rust, a couple very minor scratches and very VERY small dings, no missing hardware..the "big" dent in the marque i managed to work out by hand even....while replacing the t-stat i had to carve down a screwdriver to get down in there to the bracket for the coiling of the probe..talk about a tight fit
