Our customer from SC came across this old 1950s Vendo 216. I believe he told me someone was discarding it, and he jumped in an made an offer to keep it alive. Well, when we got the machine, it was apparent that over the years someone has tried rig the motor and vending operation.
The coin mech did not work, the motor had been relocated, the rollers were locked up and it did not cool. He wanted to put this machine in his car shop. But the parts and repairs would be hard to find and not worth the cost to him. So he decided to have us do the next best thing: Make it into a drink fridge.
So for this project the plan was to put in a new cooling system, take out all the interior parts, build shelves inside, refinish the interior, and clean up the exterior (leaving the patina), and replace the door lock.
Use the slider to see the before and after.
We took the full image above before the cooling system was installed. Below is the completed image with the cooling system.
