If your oven won’t prewarm as quickly as it used to, or the oven won’t heat up at all, the likely culprit is the ignitor. We’ll show you basic troubleshooting to see what the problem is and how to do this repair yourself!
Our stove has served us well for over 20 years. Recently, it took longer and longer for the oven to reach temperature, and then one day, it simply wouldn’t work at all.
A technician told us it was likely the ignitor, and that parts and labor would cost around $425! We decided to see if we could do it ourselves. We’re glad we did! The part was under $100 from our friends at www.ereplacementparts.com.
Our stove is a Maytag brand, but we found that the ignitor for our unit fits MANY other brands and years of manufacture.
To ensure that our oven’s problem was indeed the igniter, we had to do a bit of process of elimination. First, was the stove/oven getting power? Yes - the display was active, and the light inside the oven could be turned off and on. Was there a problem with the power getting to the ignitor? Most ovens have two igniters and burner sets. One is under the floor of the main oven compartment, and the other is at the top and is used for broiling. We turned on the broiler, and shortly thereafter the igniter glowed, and the burner ignited.
By then, we had determined it was highly probable that the bottom igniter was faulty. After removing it after removing just a few fasteners, we could see that there was a burned-out spot in the igniter. That igniter was toast (pun intended)!
Using the procedure shown in this episode, we removed the igniter and replaced it with a new one. The problem was immediately solved.
Something that is important to know about the igniter is that it is more than just the ignition source for the gas that is being emitted from the burner tube. The igniter also controls the gas valve that supplies the burner tube. If there isn’t continuity through the igniter, and it doesn’t glow and create a current draw, the gas valve won’t open. This is to ensure that gas doesn’t flow into the oven cavity (and ultimately the living space) without being consumed by flame.
The particular part we ordered from www.ereplacementparts.com was #74007498 Gas Oven Igniter - Vertical Mount. The invoice had some other codes you may find to be helpful: SO-40146(3) SO-40222 SO-40566 SO-40597 Y.
Sure you can call a service tech, but it will cost you plenty, and this is a simple repair you can do yourself with just a few basic tools. You can do this!
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
Did you just try to turn on your oven
and either it took forever to preheat
or it doesn't even come on at all?
Well, I've got the likely solution.
Stick with me.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay from DirtFarmerJay.com.
We've had this range stove for about 22 years now
and it served us faithfully.
We absolutely prefer the gas range and the gas oven,
but just this last few days, all of a sudden,
it took forever to preheat.
I'm talking about setting and then 45 minutes later,
finally, the temperature was up in the oven
to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
And then just yesterday, we turned it on
and nothing happened.
Whenever you work on a home appliance like this,
make sure that you're working safely.
Don't tamper with any of the gas controls
or any of the electrical parts at all.
We're working only with what's called the igniter
and we'll show you that in a moment.
Working on these kind of things, it's your own risk.
You're fully informed and you're willing to take the risk.
We're just gonna show you what worked for us.
Let's get to it.
All right, we've gone ahead and set this to 350 degrees.
I've turned it on.
You can see the indicator here says oven is on
and preheat is happening.
Well, this has been on for several minutes.
Let's see if it's done anything.
We'll go down here in the stove.
I'm gonna turn this on where you can see here.
This is the burner pan where the heat would be coming.
There is a tube right here.
We'll show you in a moment.
I'm gonna put my hand right on it.
The only warmth I'm feeling is from that light bulb.
Nothing is happening.
So the first thing I'm gonna do is check and say,
hey, is this thing getting power?
Let's check real quick.
Is the stove getting power?
The igniter won't light up or glow unless there's power.
So is the stove?
Well, yes.
We can see right here that this is working.
We're gonna again cancel that out.
But let's try and see if the main unit down below,
there's two igniters in this,
one for the broiler function and the other for the main oven.
Let's turn on the broil.
We're gonna go ahead and set the broil.
We're gonna turn it to high and set broil.
Let's go down below and look and see
if the igniter starts to glow.
If it does, we have everything we need
and it's probably our primary igniter that is the problem.
Well, as you can see, our broiler is getting ready
to ignite.
Flame's gonna happen right here.
I don't want my hand in there.
So that's the broiler area.
We've got power and I can hear everything in here.
There it goes.
Flame has come on.
So we do have power and gas.
All right, we've eliminated a couple of sources
of the problem.
One, we know we've got power in the unit.
Number two, we know the gas valve works very well.
We saw the broiler burner light just fine in the upper part.
So now we're gonna go down to the main bottom burner
and where you have is a burner that's running this way
under this pan that distributes the heat.
So to pull this out, you've got to wiggle this
and there's some clips at the back you need to pull back
and then lift up.
There you go.
Get this pan out.
And when you do, now you'll see down below
the main burner array and here is the igniter over here.
And I can see just looking at it, it is really scorched
and I can't quite see, but I believe there's a break in it.
Let's just take a look.
We're gonna go ahead and remove it by doing a couple things.
One, there's a couple of screws right here.
The cord that runs down to the control is down below.
We'll unplug that below by pulling out the bottom drawer,
the storage drawer, and then we're gonna undo this burner
which only has a screw right here at the front
that you can't see in one here.
We'll pull that out and then we're gonna examine the igniter.
Let's go to it.
So let's go ahead and remove the screw
in the front here and the back.
All right, now I need to reach underneath
and I'll show you that when we reverse it below
and unclip this plug off the igniter from below.
You'll see how that works if you stay to the end.
Okay, we've now unclipped it from beneath.
Let's pull the plug loose
and lift this burner tube out of its housing.
There it goes.
There we go.
There's the whole unit right there.
Well, let's take a look here.
You still can't, I can see down below that there's a problem
but let's go ahead and get this unit off of here.
I'm using a 516 nut driver for this particular unit.
All right, let's pull this out.
Ah, you can see the problem right there.
You don't have continuity.
There's a gap right there.
So when power is supplied to this igniter,
it's not gonna glow.
Look at the difference.
Here's a new igniter and you can see
there's continuity here.
Now something you need to know about the igniter.
This is more than just an ignition source
where this glows as you saw earlier on the broiler one
to be able to do ignition temperature.
But also this lets the gas valve know
because of amperage draw that it's safe
to open the gas valve.
You can imagine if there was no ignition source,
you simply turned on the oven and said,
I want it to set at 275 degrees.
The gas valve opens but it does not ignite.
Pretty soon you've got a very dangerous situation.
The oven cavity and the room around here filling with gas.
So this is a safety that works much like a thermocouple does
for gas powered devices like water heaters
and space heaters or space fireplaces
and that sort of thing.
So we now have eliminated all the other areas.
We found our problem.
Let's go ahead and put the new unit in.
All right, here we go.
Let's just reverse the steps.
Make sure those are tweaked in pretty nicely.
Okay, we're ready to reinstall.
Go ahead and put in the pigtail down below into the port
and then lower the tube in behind it.
And as you do, you'll feel it drop into place.
We'll show you what that looks like underneath in a moment.
There it is right there.
All right, put the screws back.
All right, now what we're gonna do is go down below,
plug the unit together and then let's do a test fire
to see if this works.
All right, let's go ahead and pull off this storage area.
You're gonna have to lift it at the very end.
The roller's out off to the side.
Let's see what we can see down here.
Okay, a couple of things to point out.
First of all, right here is the burner tube
that we dropped down through the top
and it is set right over the port
that is perfectly here, that situated.
Over here, you're going to see the plug
that we need to plug the top in
that we've dropped in a moment ago.
There it is right there.
And these are shaped, they're round on one side,
flat on the other, so it can only go together correctly
in the right polarity.
So let's go ahead and put those together.
And there's little keepers on it
to stop it from pulling apart.
So now we are there.
Now, just so you know, just to save time,
there is a shield that goes right up on this
that protects this, and that's only put in with two screws.
It's pretty intuitive,
but I don't wanna waste your time showing that.
Just a sheet metal shield.
I'll need to reinstall that
before I close the whole stove up.
All right, let's take a look
and see if our repair did the trick.
We're gonna go ahead and set this to bake.
I'll just set bake.
With that more, it'll hit one time to 350.
Let's hit it again and let the preheat happen.
Let's roll this down.
We haven't put the pan in yet,
but we're just gonna see if that glows.
Houston, we have ignition.
Watch the flame come on in just a minute.
The igniter sits here.
It's now at ignition temperature.
The gas body down below the valve will start to flow,
and then boom, we now are starting to preheat our oven.
Let's go ahead and shut that off
so we can close it all back up.
So now you can see we're up and running.
We've repaired it.
The issue here, we're gonna shut this off in a moment,
and then obviously you need to put this back in.
Do not run the oven without this in.
We'll put this back in, and as you can see,
this is an easy fix, saves you a ton of money,
and it's something you can do yourself.
Now you're cooking, and speaking of cooking,
check out these great videos of some other recipes
and preparations we've made especially for you.
Enjoy.
Until the next time, this is Dirt Farmer Jay
from dirtfarmerjay.com.
