Releveling the Fridge

We decided to work on an issue with our Furrion refrigerator leaning back too far.  Ever since our last trip up to Grapevine, it’s been leaning too far back compared to its “normal” look.  It made the doors hit the sides of the cabinet and was causing damage. 

I was worried we’d find the floor under it giving way or that some other major repair was required.  We emptied out the refrigerator and disconnected the wood blocks holding it in place so we could pull it out to see what’s up.  Once we got it out, we checked to see if there were adjustments on the wheels either front or back that might have slipped and changed the angle but there were no adjustments.  We checked the floor and the only thing we could see were big indentions where the back wheels sat.  it looks like somewhere along the drive, we hit a big bump (or many) and the wheels pushed through the top thin layer of wood.  The divots were at least ¼ inch deep.

We figured we could probably put some wood over it but I feared anything too thick would tip the refrigerator too far forward and putting wood thick enough to prevent puncturing again under all four wheels to keep it level would put it too close to the top.  Our idea was to get some thin sheet metal and make pads for all 4 wheels.  The metal would resist indenting and spread the weight of the refrigerator or the impact of the wheels after a bump, across a larger section of the floor to prevent creating another divot.

We hit up the local True Value for some sheet metal and a friend for his angle grinder and set about making some 6” by 6” pads.  The angle grinder made short work of the cuts and I drilled out holes for screws to hold them in place and installed them under all 4 wheels.  We put the fridge back in only to find that there was very little difference in the angle!  Well, crap! 

I pulled the fridge out again, removed the plates from the front and doubled them on the back and put everything back again and the fridge was nearly back to the normal angle in the cabinet but not quite perfect.  At least the doors didn’t hit the sides anymore so we locked it down and pressed on.

What’s going on? I’m thinking that any bump rough enough to punch the wheels through wood flooring would be rough enough to bend the metal holding the wheels in place.  So maybe, the back wheels have “recessed” a bit compared to normal and that’s the reason for the remaining tilt.  Just a working hypothesis for now. Either way, it adds emphasis to our needing to do something about the suspension to smooth out the ride.  We’ll be adding Lippert air bags to take some of the beating and protect our RV.