GE XL44 Oven Igniter replacement

 The other day my daughter was trying to bake a flan - her very first attempt in our oven and the oven would not heat up and thus started this DIY repair.

Scrolled through a few videos on youtube and learnt that  the most common problem is a burnt igniter. Did not do much of a diagnbosis if that was the case here but on hunch started to take the oven apart to see if I can get to the igniter. 

First step is to remove the door. Just open it a little and then slide up or pull up towards you in order to remove it. It just slides up from the two brackets on either side. There are no screws or anything securing the door. The door is heavy so make sure to grab is firmly on both sides.

Then remove the metal drawers or shelves and also slide out the bottom compartment.

There are tow screws at the back, remove those with a flat head screw driver. Once off remove the bottom cover. Pull up the cover from the back of the oven a little, pivoting it on the front edge and then slowly dislodge it from the front groove. The cover can have sharp edges at the bottom so be careful not to get a cut.  

So, as you can see in the picture the igniter is burnt and needs to be replaced. Removing the igniter is very tricky. There are two screws holding the igniter against the long burner rod and its difficult to get to those screws without removing the burner rod. Remove the screw seen in the front of the above picture to remove one end of the burner rod. Then there are two more screws at the other end of the burner rod, which we will get to from the botttom compartment. 

Finally we have to get to the two screws holding the igniter against the burner rod, but we cannot easily get to these without removing the burner rod.  

Under the oven make sure the red tab is horizontal to the ground indicating that the flow of gas is on. Sometimes igniter might be ok and this switch might have accidentally been turned off. In my case it definitely is a bad igniter.

Disconnected the two wires from the igniter. One goes to a white plastic connector and another one to a flat connector as shown above. Nothing to press, just pull away to disconnect.

This is the most difficult part of the job, to remove these two screws, from the other end of the burner rod. Its difficult to get in here and get a good grip with a tool, especially when the gas metal tube pretty much covers the 2nd or the lower of the two screws. Took forever but I was able remove these. 

After completing removing the burner rod, we can see the two screws which hold the igniter against the burner rod. Bougth the replacement igniter from amazon.

Attached the new igniter and after doing a dry fit realized that the wires from the replacement are a tad short, especially the one with the flat connector. Also the repalcement did not have the white connector like the old one. So cut the connectors from the old device and attached it to the new one. The replacement came with wire nuts so that was helpful.

So now, had to put everything back in the reverse order. Attached the igniter to the burner rod, then attached the back of the burner rod from the bottom of the oven, then attached the front of the burner rod. Connected the wires and made sure they flow or route correctly without any obstacles and tucked them away. Ran a test.

Then installed the bottom cover, front in first and then the back and attached the two screws at the back. Slid the shelves and the bottom drawer back on. Finally attached the front door and oven back in shape.