Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Gas stove igniter replacement

Not to sound callous, but this virus has been a godsend for my project list.  Turns out that NOT getting home after a long day at work and being tired is the key to being productive at home.

Had an igniter switch go bad on my GE range.  Wasn't the end of the world as all five igniters operate as one from any of the five switches, so the key to igniting the bad burner was to turn one burner to start, turn the gas on the bad burner, turn the switch off on the other burner.

Yesterday, having had the new igniter switch lying around for most of eight months, and not wanted to work on any of the projects out in my garage or back yard, I decided it was time to pull the stove apart.

First step is to take the top off.  You have to undo all the screws from all the burners (total of 15) using a T-15 torx bit.  Some of them were tight and my inexpensive t-handle torx broke.  Out to the trailer for my Snap On 1/4 drive bit and a ratchet.  Much better.


One thing that was NOT mentioned in the helpful video that I watched was that the igniter for the center burner actually inserts from above, into a metal clip, and has a wire attached to the bottom of it.  Thankfully the wire is designed to be pulled out from the bottom (momentary panic when I tugged on it and it came out without knowing that was the design).  A bit of  a hassle because you have to hold the top up, reach under and disconnect the wire, then tug and push the igniter through the top before you can lift the top off the stove.

Anyway, fifteen screws and one igniter later the top, which has two spring loaded clips at the front which are released by shoving a putty knife under the front, lifts out and is set aside.


Next the front panel had to come off.  The knobs just pull straight  out.  There were four phillips head screws on top, four phillips head screws on the front (holding the second and fourth assemblies to the panel, and four hex head screws underneath (easily accessible with the door open).


The igniter on the far right is the one I needed to replace and of course they were all hard wired together.  Obviously a single assembly from the factory, connected at the far left with sealed connectors.


Fortunately I had those in my shop trailer so back out to get the parts and ...



... snip two wires, strip four wires, discover that the red wire is hot, unplug the stove, crimp two connectors, reassemble.


Voila, working burner.




I did not enter this project lightly.  My experience has been that no project, no matter how simple, survives first contact with the enemy.  100% failure of 100% of projects to go smoothly and not require some sort of trip to somewhere to get something, generally leading to loss of enthusiasm on my part.

This one was as unbelievably simple as it gets.

EDIT: Weird.  When I added the little video to the post to show the burner lighting, it switched it around.  Mirror image.  Now the repaired burner is on the left instead of the right.  First time I've ever inserted a video so I have no idea if this is normal.

EDIT: Wow, the pictures made it a whole day.  So much for the experiment where I  upload pictures to Google Drive from my phone and then use the pictures in Google Drive to write posts in Google blogger.  I'll take care of them later today or tomorrow.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Look at you, getting all productive.

--generic