Outside of Upright freezer very hot to touch

[Earl Dryer]

Lady the freezer door partially open for a couple of days, called me all frantic that her freezer was defrosting.  I replaced a defrost timer and Heater last week that were bad (she called me to check her freezer that was defrosting) Defrosted the evaporator & unplugged the cond. drain put in timer & element. The coil had a light coating of frost covering about 75% of it and acouple of chuncks of ice on top (no ice accummulation at cap tube). I cleaned up the ice and mess, buttoned the unit up, placed a thermometer in the unit and left for about 3 hrs, the temp inside was down to 30f but the exterior sides are very hot to touch.  WHAT IS Happening???

Model Number: EV250NXMQ00

[Repair-man]

The condenser fan in back may be out. This makes the compressor run hot and the hot refrigerant is palpable on the outer walls of the cabinet where the Yoder Loop is run.

[JWWebster]

the sides are hot because the condensing is done inside the walls on this freezer. It keeps water off the freezer and it condenses the freon . The only downfall of a freezer like this is it is imposible to fix a leak inside the cabinet of these. I have fixed them by using an old refrigerator external condenser and bypassing the steel jacket on older freezers.

[Earl Dryer]

Thanks JW,
I figgered as much since this unit has no cond. fan and the only visible condensor does not appear to be nearly large enough to do the job for this large of a unit.

[Repair-man]

The 'condenser' you saw is actually the condenser, and it sits under the drain pan, not in the cabinet. The Yoder loop running thru the cabinet is there to prevent sweating during periods of high humidity. Since there is no external fan, you have sealed system problems. 

In service terms this is an "inefficient" compressor. You can try recharging the system to see if it holds the charge for a few months. If not, there may be a leak inside the cabinet somewhere that cannot be fixed. There is a Yoder loop repair kit consisting of a heater wire much like the crankcase heaters on A/C units, but it is difficult to install and requires special tubing fittings to accomplish. A re-charge may do the trick temporarily, but damage to the compressor valves may have occured during the periods of having the door open with the light on for more than 24 hours.

[Earl Dryer]

Thanks ya'll'
I drained (Recovered), evacuated the system, and refilled with new gas, all is well at this point. Unit has been running about 4 hrs & the Temp is down to around 15F.

Thanks