The availability of some refrigeration components can create major issues when repairing a system. Occasionally you may be faced with a dilemma where the component you need is not available, and the customer is in desperate need of getting the system up and running. Recently I ran into a scenario where what I thought would be an easy repair ended up being quite a challenge.

I was called out to repair a fairly large walk-in freezer. It was low on refrigerant, and I was able to locate the leak on the fusible plug on top of the receiver. The fusible plug had not blown out; the leak was on the threads between the tank and a bushing used to connect the fusible plug to the receiver. I first attempted to tighten the bushing to try and repair the leak. Of course, that did not work, and in fact, it made the leak worse.