Several years ago the tubing to the refrigerator flat plate cooling element on my B36(2002) also developed a leak, though I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that it didn’t cool the refrigerator. Also as there wasn’t a firm of refrigeration engineers anywhere within thirty five miles, I removed the refrigeration system from the boat and took it to a firm near to where I live. They examined it and found that a small pin hole leak had occurred in the tubing where vibration had caused it to chafe against part of the woodwork on the boat. They soldered over the leak, recharged the refrigeration gas and warned me that it might not last,
The system was then reinstalled on the boat with copious amounts of foam padding to prevent the tubes from chafing again, and the system was put back into use.
That was about five years ago, and refrigerator still works fine. The cost for the repair and re-gassing came to about £180 back then, and was considerably less money than buying a new cooling system. So it might be worth having refrigeration engineers take a look at your system.
To take the system out, it was necessary to undo the large connection between the pipe work to the cooling plate and where that connects to the pipes from the compressor. This connection is self sealing, although inevitably you will lose a small amount of refrigeration gas to atmosphere.
It can be a bit of a fiddly job because you won’t want to cause any damage to the tubing as you remove it, and the evaporator or cooling plate and it’s end of the tube, has to be withdrawn from inside the refrigerator itself, and subsequently refitted from there.
