Some of you may remember my Frigidaire Gallery "Gas on Glass" 36" cooktop that I souped up a few years ago to put out more BTU's in two of the burners.
While that has worked well, the cooktop itself has proved a bit difficult to keep clean. Mainly because the drip bowls are fixed and shallow and easily get food splatters burnt into the black porcelain. I've tried all sorts of cleaners, including lye, but nothing really seems to clean it up.
So today I decided enough was enough, and disassembled the burners to free the drip bowls. I removed the rubber gaskets that seal them to the glass base, and stuck the metal parts in the GE P*7 wall oven and put them through a cleaning cycle.
I was a little anxious because I was worried the drip bowls might warp or something. But at the end there was just a fine coating of white ash where the burnt on food had been.
The only drawback is that the process seems to have bleached some of the color out of the porcelain, with it appearing somewhat lighter where the food had been. But I can live with that; at least the stuff is clean now.
I left the burner grates out of the process, and put them through the Bosch instead. But I think they will also need to go through the self cleaning oven heat cycle, as the dishwasher wasn't able to remove all the gunk (yeah, I let them go a little too long between cleanings).
Oh, one other note. The burners for this cooktop are made in France, and have plated steel metric screws securing the drip bowls to them. These screws tend to seize up. A while back I had to remove a number of them. Some of them even broke off, so I had to drill them out. By using a hand tap I converted them to American threads and am using good stainless screws instead. I also put some "never seize" non-leaded lubricant on the threads; which paid off today because I had no trouble removing any of the screws.
While that has worked well, the cooktop itself has proved a bit difficult to keep clean. Mainly because the drip bowls are fixed and shallow and easily get food splatters burnt into the black porcelain. I've tried all sorts of cleaners, including lye, but nothing really seems to clean it up.
So today I decided enough was enough, and disassembled the burners to free the drip bowls. I removed the rubber gaskets that seal them to the glass base, and stuck the metal parts in the GE P*7 wall oven and put them through a cleaning cycle.
I was a little anxious because I was worried the drip bowls might warp or something. But at the end there was just a fine coating of white ash where the burnt on food had been.
The only drawback is that the process seems to have bleached some of the color out of the porcelain, with it appearing somewhat lighter where the food had been. But I can live with that; at least the stuff is clean now.
I left the burner grates out of the process, and put them through the Bosch instead. But I think they will also need to go through the self cleaning oven heat cycle, as the dishwasher wasn't able to remove all the gunk (yeah, I let them go a little too long between cleanings).
Oh, one other note. The burners for this cooktop are made in France, and have plated steel metric screws securing the drip bowls to them. These screws tend to seize up. A while back I had to remove a number of them. Some of them even broke off, so I had to drill them out. By using a hand tap I converted them to American threads and am using good stainless screws instead. I also put some "never seize" non-leaded lubricant on the threads; which paid off today because I had no trouble removing any of the screws.
