Cleaning between the door glass of a Frigidaire oven
The other night, one of my kids managed to spill soup into the vents at the top of the oven door. Googling around, I discovered this is not uncommon. Various forum contributors were evenly divided among “buck up and live with it,” “clean it yourself,” “sell the house,” “call a professional to repair it,” and “replace the oven” — roughly my priority of options. Since this is a relatively new kitchen remodel, my better half was antsy to have it fixed.
Oh, the horror!
An eHow article (Update: link removed because the site is just a content farm) was only marginally helpful because it lacked pictures and was written to be super generic. However, it did link to the helpful ‘sploded diagram below, which helped me confirm that this was doable by a mortal. So, for those of you who come here because you have the same issue, here is a pictorial guide, using my oven as the model for all ovens ever made.
 Oven door schematic from Sears Parts Direct. |
Difficulty: Moderate… because the door is heavy. If your oven is older, the door screws may be corroded and difficult to remove.
Tools and materials required:
- #2 Philips screwdriver with a good point.
- Cleaning supplies. For the internal pane, Windex was sufficient. On the inside of the oven, I used a razor blade and vinegar.
- Ice cold beer.
Time: About 30 minutes, including cleaning stuff.
Step 1: Disconnect the rack from the door. Mine has two rods that connect to the lower tray. Rotating them 90 degrees will let them slide out.
caption
Step 2: Lock the hinges. There is a lever on each hinge that slides down to keep it from moving further. (See yellow arrow for the range of motion.)
Hinge unlocked.
Hinge locked – what could be easier?
Step 3: Close the door all but a hand-length (about 10° open). Grab each side of the door — not its handle — and lift up. Repeat: do not lift by the handle. Lift by handle, you shall not. (Why? The handle won’t support the weight of the door.)
Do. Not. Lift. By. The. Handle.
Step 4: Set the door on a flat surface.
Door on a flat surface. (Duh.)
Step 5: There are six screws you’ll need to remove: four small ones (“60B” on the schematic above) on the bottom of the door (below the hinge levers), and the two large ones (“10″ on the schematic) holding the handle (“39″ in the schematic) that you did not use to lift the door with.
Below the door screws are two smaller screws on each side. Don’t remove these as they’re only for the hinge mechanism. (Because I didn’t know what I was doing, I did. It’s not a big deal, but it’s unnecessary work.)
Green go, red stop.
The door screw: You have chosen wisely.
Four screws at the base of the door
Step 6: Gently lift the black, heavy, hinged part off the facade.
This is the main door.
While I had the main door out, I used the razor blade to scrape the cooked food splatters off the oven glass, then cleaned grease with vinegar and paper towels.
Step 7: Clean the drip off the facade:
Windex and paper towel time!
The stain wasn’t bad, so I just used a simple glass cleaner. While I was at it, I cleaned out the vent holes with wadded up paper towels.
Clean enough to cook with!
Step 8: Reassemble the door: put the facade on the main door. Attach the four screws on the bottom. Squeeze the top of the door together and attach the two door handle screws.
Step 9: Gently set the door hinges into the slots on the oven. The door hinges will not release until they’re settled into the oven and you’ve pulled on the door a little bit:
Door hinges won’t unlock unless the door’s attached.
Step 10: Drink cold beer.
Clean enough to cook on!
Dude! How could you pass up such a golden opportunity to use more of those flame decals????
Oh, it would be so tempting… however, my spouse has a security council veto.
Nice work! I love all the pictures. I think it’s hilarious that the screws are color-coded red and green (mine aren’t). Nor do I have the locking hinges (as far as I can tell), though mine’s a Sears oven too.
I totally second the flame-decal motion. Come on!
Great information ! Thank you !! My stove looks great now.
You rock. Seriously. This worked like a charm on my Frigidaire.
Great idea! Was so excited to try it, but discovered one of my hinge locks is broken and the door won’t budge…any recommendations?
It depends how it is broken. (Does the door open/close now? Or is the lock being finicky, preventing you from unlocking? If the former, you may be able to get the door out with an assistant. (It’s just pretty heavy and bulky.) If the latter, I found it necessary to put the door in first, thereby using the leverage afforded by the oven + weight of the door to relieve pressure on the hinge.
Just spilled clam chowder in the oven door vents. Please don’t ask how I did this : ) I did a google search and thank goodness I found your website. Performed the cleaning project in about 30 minutes. Thanks for the information you provided!
Awesome! I have almost the exact same Frigidaire oven and was just thinking I should probably give this a try to clean a drip that got in there years ago. Now I have the confidence to do this myself. Woo hoo!
Thank you so much!!! My husband cooked soup and I about died when I noticed a streak of soup in between the glass. We have had this stove for one month! I just cleaned it and put it back together without a problem. I am so grateful. The pictures and your detailed description were so helpful. I think it only took my 15 mins.! Thanks again.
I’ve had my Frigidaire Range/Oven for about 8 years and have had a big white drip on the inside of the glass for about 7 years, 360 days. It has always bugged me. So, this weekend, I am going to fix this. I wonder if the newest models have corrected this apparent design flaw. Thanks so much for the detailed how-to!
Nope, they haven’t caught on. My stove is almost brand new, a GE, and I had only had the sucker for 5 days, FIVE DAYS when I boiled white sausage gravy over and 2 drips of it strung all the way down the front of my oven, inside the door. I have never been more livid with myself in all my life! Thought it was a lost cause until I came across this link on Pintrest…thanks so much! Can’t wait to try to clean it myself this week! But I am with you…why on Earth would they ever design stoves where things can go down in there? With no simple way of cleaning them out???
Thank you for including drink beer in the instructions. I will use it to bribe my husband to clean out the food he spilled in the door. This is why we can’t have nice things.
“This is why we can’t have nice things.”
Is one of my FAVORITE sayings! We have been married 15 years & have a 13 year old son & an 8 year old son.
This phrase gets said a LOT!
Cracked me up to see someone else use it!
I say that to my 30-year-old fiance on a fairly regular basis as well.
Wonderful tutorial. Love your sense of humor. Keep posting!
Jim,
I now know that there is nothing under the sun that Google cannot help me with; your terrific instructions prove it! My glass frount has had the white streak for 4 years and today it will be gone! The appliance On-Line instructor wanted 23.00 for this and I believe he would not have included the detail or the humor . the wife….will be estatic.
John
Portland Or
My stove is less than a year old, soon after there was a spill and sure enough down through the glass panes it went. I have been so frustrated looking at my pretty stove with the stains between the glass and also embrassed when you have people over. You can’t help but notice! After reading how to clean between the door glass of my Frigidaire oven, I decided to give it a try. Nervous a bit I got my materials together and went to work! An hour and half latter I had a sparkling glass in my oven door! And guess what? I actually put it back together and back onto the stove with no trouble at all! You can do anything you put your mind to (with special instructions of course) even a lady at age 67. THANKS Mr. Jim Carson! Betty
Thank you for the comments Cindy, Lyndsey, John and Betty – it really tickles me that this has been helpful.
Wish I had seen this BEFORE we cleaned ours – anyway, we didn’t have much trouble removing and cleaning but when reassembled and read to put back on the glass on the front shattered into a bozillion pieces! We purchased another glass and put on and back to the oven it went with no problem. Any idea why the glass would shatter?
I am in awe! I guess that must be what has happened to my oven glass…could not figure it out at all. Thanks for the tutorial!! I will definitely pass it along!
Karen
I agree that this is a major design flaw in ovens. What idiots! How can part of the design process not be to use and abuse an oven before it hits production. Someone in our house managed to spill something in the lower oven vent less than a month after the 60 year old Hotpoint ovens were replaced with Maytag ovens. I wanted to throw up when I noticed it. Took a year for me to get my husband to disassemble that POS and I didn’t have it done in 30 minutes. I cleaned that thing until you could have put the door only back on a showroom floor. It can be done but it is hard. Heavy and awkward. Thanks for providing this for others.
Awesome! thanks for your directions….it worked!!! your’re a genius….thank you….this saved us big bucks for a repairman!!
I did this several years ago without a tutorial. Just figured it out by myself. The ONLY difficulty I encountered was that I dropped a screw and it fell into the corner of the drawer…in between the “walls” — hidden until I moved a year later! I took the kitchen apart looking for that darn screw! Door worked okay without it…
Great step by step directions. Mine is not bad but I can’t stand my oven not being clean. Thanks so much, I didn’t even know this could be done.
I actually called them to ask how to clean that part ..so many drips on mine..I far rather NOT have a window into my oven to tell you the truth..LOL. the guy sent me the instuctions just as i see on your site here..I want to do it ..i really do..but i dont’ have time..I like how you broke it down..and i’m pinning it for sure. I now know this is doable.
So happy to find this info. Wish I had had it for my old range, but will keep it handy for my NEW range. Thanks.
THank you so much for this info. I have had a line down my stove for almost 2 yrs and I am a clean freak and when I can across this my hubby did it within 30 mins. It looks like a brand new stove.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Been fighting with a coat hanger and rags on my back trying to get the glass clean thru the vent holes. If a pregnant lady can do this all by herself anyone can! Take that spilt milk stain!
OK. I’ve got a Kenmore 790 3 ys ago. Got the same drip in my glass – (Hmmmmm…have your kids been in my house?) My manual said n o t h i n g about cleaning between glass. I figured it out myself. After weeks of searching for something to remove the magic screws, I found it – a #1 star driver bit, which is now taped inside the cupboard. So, I got my glass cleaned, reassembled the door sandwich, replaced screw #1. went to replace screw #2, and it kept popping back out. Disassembled, and discovered that the hole inside the handle is completely stripped. nice… I used gorilla glue and clamps to get the screw to stay put, but door was not as tight as it should be. My husband got tired of me griping about it; called Sears and a repairman came out. $180 later*, my door is fixed. All because Carson’s kids snuck into my house and spilled soup, and ran.
*(we should’ve just ordered replacemt handle for $55)
ps – repairman said the stripping most likely took place during assembly process due to pneumatic driver. oy
Thanks for the awesome post. Lo and behold found out my door comes out… sadly, found out it didn’t go back in as nicely. Now I’m waiting for my land lord to get a repair guy to possibly come reinstall my door since I’ve got some ancient McClary that no website seems to know about.
I’ve been trying to reinstall it for the last hour,
Thanks for your post on how to clean between the door. I can’t stand looking at the drips between the glass. I have also tried dampened paper towels carefully taped over a flexible ruler. Don’t try this as it doesn’t work and you may end up with paper towel stuck between the glass! I would be very leery to attempt taking apart the door without your instructions and documented success. I have a tendency to be good at taking things apart and struggling with the “back together” aspect. I’ll hopefully post to let you know how the cleaning goes. Once again, THANKS!
Thanks so much! This was a great help in cleaning our oven door after a Thanksgiving turkey drippings catastrophe! Our door had four layers of glass and ALL of them had baked on turkey broth. My husband read your info and applied it to our particular oven…now our door is like new again!
Dear Jim Carson,
Thank you for the excellent DIY ! So, here’s a “whaddya think” for your response, please:
Why would this sort of wide open door vent design flaw/feature, in your opinion, remain on so many oven models, frustrating so many oven buyers and users for so long? If vents are required, why are they placed in the center top section of the door rather than near the top outer edges of the door where inevitable spills are less likely to splash down into the vents? At the very least, why isn’t there a better splash guard to shield the vents? Is it oven maker arrogance and indifference or what…whaddya think??
Best, -Reston
Reston – honestly, I think it’s a case of style having precedence over utility. It seems like they could elongate the vents and adjust their pitch such that it would be more difficult for food to get in there. (I’m still not sure how it was done on ours; but clearly I’m not the only one here…)
This is so fantastic! Simple! Thank you!