Can't say about a V42, but had a similar problem on my B36 where the refrigeration equipment was retrofitted presumably as a result of the original equipment having failed. The retrofitted fridge had worked well for several seasons, but last year it lost its gas. Removing the cooling plate meant disconnecting the refrigerant pipes near, but not next, to the fridge compressor where the connections had self sealing valves either side of the joint. Next was to remove the screws that supported the cooling plate within the fridge compartment, and to remove the seal where the pipes entered the fridge compartment. That left a hole through which the pipe connectors released earlier could be withdrawn. Withdrawing the pipes meant feeding them through holes in the furniture, in my case this was the woodwork forming the base of my port side settee within the main cabin. Once the cooling plate and its supply pipes had been withdrawn, the fridge compressor was removed from its location under the port side settee and the whole "gubbins" was taken to a refrigeration specialist. There it was examined and they found a minute hole in one of the refrigerant pipes which they cleaned and covered in epoxy resin with some backing material (don't know what it was) which was left to harden off. Once it had, the system was re-gassed and put on test where it was left running for a couple of days before they called me and presented me with a working fridge unit and an invoice for about £180. Well, it was either that or buying new fridge machinery !! Once back onboard the system was reinstalled and it was noted that the repair in the pipe was in an area where the pipe had passed through a hole in the woodwork under the settee. The hole was enlarged and smoothed off, and a length of half inch water pipe insulation was fitted around the refrigerator pipe work where it went through that hole in order to prevent further chafe, and this was taped in place to prevent the insulation from coming off. The fridge has worked fine all this season so far.
