Bill, I ripped out my old refrigerator seal completely because it was getting 'gungy', and I installed a new seal. The new seal was simple weatherstripping I purchased from Home Depot. I fould that what keeps the fridge doors from laying flat is the seal strip that fits between the two top halves, near the hinge. If that gets too 'fat', then the two doors will never be able to lay completely horizontal.

You might want to experiment a bit with that inside hinge seal strip.

Welcome to the C36IA forum. Please click on User CP, upper left corner of this page, and set up an automated signature. It's easy to do. Use my signature below as a model of the type of info to include. Having a full signature helps all of us to help you. Also, I'd like to know the name of your boat so I can say hello when we cruising up your way next summer.

I can't help you with the fridge seals, though I'm interested in the solutions as I would like to upgrade mine.
I changed my batteries to 4, GC2H deep cycle, flooded batteries. These fit, just barely, in the starbord lockers under the seats, with 3 in the aft locker and one in the forward locker. It took a bit of work to make it all fit with battery boxes, but in the end it worked out nicely and I now have just under 500 amp hours of house plus a dedicated start.
If you are ever up in Seattle and want to take a look I would be happy to show you. I could also probably get you some pictures.
I did a full upgrade of all the heavy wiring at that time as almost twenty years had taken a heavy toll on wiring that was too light to begin with.

Neil, Your comment about 3 batteries in one jump seat and the 4th under the other. Here is a picture to show that all 4 will fit in one (AFT) and you will be able to use the forward seat for a 12V starting/emergency battery.To put the 4th in the aft seat you will need to cut the support for the cover to allow you to get the battery in. Doesn't look pretty but it does not weaken the seat and it does not show until you uncover it!

Thanks Gary, I considered that option. What I did include in the aft locker was a whole new distribution panel with fusing, battery combiner and easily accessable bus bars for distribution. This panel is removable as a single unit for service and upgrades. The obvious trade off of a longer wire run for one of the batteries, loss of a "dry" locker and the extra work involved seemed like a good trade off for the location of the distro panel. The single battery in the forward locker tucks away nicely in the aft, midships corner, leaving room for a jug of distilled water, wiring spares, battery tester etc. I put the charger in the small locker under the starboard table and the start batt in the small locker under the cabinet which is just forward of the chart table behind the seat cushion. The resulting system has relatively short wire runs for all the heavy functions and is pretty easy to service. In a probably silly determination to shove as many amp hours as I could into the boat, I chose the GC2H batteries, with the "H" standing for "high", meening tall. I got a little more capacity but it did make the inatallation tighter I'll admit.

for the fridge latch, I saw this on Catalina Direct [url]http://www.catalinadirect.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&produ...

They are Dyno. From the factory in Ballard. I don't think that saves any money, but they put the terminals on at point of purchase and there are some very low profile terminals available. In my case, every inch of height was important. In addition the people at the factory are very knowledgeable and helpful, a family owned operation.
I would be glad to show you the installation, just about any time. Get in touch at [email]flynr@aol.com[/email].

We've gotten a bit off the track of the original topic of this thread. When I get back to the US and have some spare time I'll split it into two threads. In the meantime, maybe it's best if we confine this thread to the Fridge, and begin another thread for the battery ideas.

If the threads get mixed up it makes it very inconvenient for future users to do searches.

Thanks all.