Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Magic Chef Gas Stove -- Stovetop Burners


This style of burner

View of burner with grate removed.




comes out with just a CCW twist, but beware -- age may have rendered the thing very tightly in place. There's a resilient ring gasket underneath the burner that may be stuck, making it difficult to twist the burner.

Grab the burner with a piece of inner tube rubber, or non-slip carpet underlay, and you'll get a good enough grip to persuade the burner to twist and come out.

The gasket under the pictured burner was brittle with age, and ended up like this when I got the burner freed.



I don't know if replacement gaskets are available separately. I put the burner back without the gasket. That works ok -- it's just that a spill can drool down under the stovetop with the gasket no longer there.

When the burner is pulled up out of place, there'll be two wires attached to it, like so.


The orange wire goes to the spark ignitor electrode; the yellow wire goes to the burner's shell (ground return). The wires are terminated with spade connectors -- just pull them free. (The connectors are different sizes -- you can't go wrong when reconnecting them.)

Two No. 6 x 5/16" pan head screws hold the ignitor in place.


With the screws removed, the ignitor can be coaxed out.


The ignitor is just a stiff, bent wire with a couple of ceramic insulators on it.


Replacement ignitors are available; ignitor repair seems to be iffy. A broken ceramic insulator can possibly be repaired with silicone sealant, sparingly applied. (I've tried using CA adhesive, but the repair didn't last.) Outright replacement of a broken ignitor is probably the best course.

And that's about all there is to a burner. The things ought to last forever.

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