Starting the New Year w/Flair

[carmine]

I decided to tackle installing the 30" Flair I've been sitting on for a year... It will be a nice match for my '64 Frigidaire. Glad I decided to take it apart, as I found a few safety issues (like a wire nut where the plastic insulator is long gone)!

Anyway, I'm wondering if the oven "box" can be removed? The goal would be to access the drawer section and remove it. I've already removed the bottom drip tray (which was missing half the screws) but I know I'll have to remove the springs that assist the mechanism, and that looks like it must be done from above... Thus remove the oven.

I'm sure this has been done before...

 

[carmine]

Another photo. It looks awful in these pics, in fact the top heating element has a thin metal piece with some rust, but it's really not in bad shape. Pretty sure it should all work, I tried everything real quick when I bought it 2 years ago... Been indoors ever since.

 

[carmine]

Figured it out... Photos tomorrow.

 

[philr]

You removed the oven liner? Years ago, I did remove some from a 40" Flair that I parted out (and they weren't good so I just threw them away!) but I can't remember exactly how I did it and I had no plan to reassemble it so I wasn't too careful at doing it! And I don't even remember why I did it!

That Flair was an early model with cable-actuated doors. Those I currently have use no cables for the counterbalance mechanism (just like yours I guess), one is a few months older than yours (a late-production RCIB-645C) and the other one is a few months newer (also a late production RCIB-645C-2), yours look like an early-production RCDB-630-2?

 

[carmine]

UPDATE

Well, I'm basically done, lol.

Took the thing much further apart than I had planned but all for the better. If you want to read the whole story, I went more in depth at this site:

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=8384209&an=0&page=0#Post8384209

(I like being able to pop the pics in with my text)

A couple things I'll mention that might help the next guy:

I did remove the oven box, but I could see that being a disaster for someone in terms of getting it back together... That insulation is of course going to "fluff out" and if you just shove the box back in, the insulation will wad up and either make re-installation impossible or leave you without insulation in some areas. The trick is to use some thin cardboard (I used old cereal boxes from the recycle bin). When you have the box 90% installed, slide out the cardboard.

I also examined the wiring to the elements. Looks like some kind of asbestos hybrid. (?) I can't say it looked "excellent", but I also realized it doesn't move/flex with the drawer. There is more conventional soft wiring at the back that plugs in with a bulkhead connector. All I did was re-do a splice someone made years ago to repair a burner. Otherwise, it looked OK for something that should move. Perhaps when I move this monster to my "keeper" house one day I'll rewire it with new high-temp wiring.

Finally there was a lot of black "dust" surrounding the clock hands. Nothing would remove it, but I sure didn't want to repaint the white paste. Automotive polishing compound to the rescue which eliminated it like nothing. In fact, I used this stuff to bring the shine back and cut through a lot of crud.

Now for some pics:

 

[rickr]

WOW! Great job! I love the brown tone, with your cabinets. Also the backsplash goes very well with the glass in the oven door.

 

[carmine]

Just to mention... You'll see some "before" kitchen remod pics at the first link (I keep them hosted elsewhere, so I don't know how to add them here). The floor/baseboard/toekicks are not done because I'm still remoding other parts of the house and don't want to trash up a new floor. That's just a $.99 a tile cheapie floor to get me through until I'm done.

 

[gansky1]

Spectacular job on the Frigidaire, almost too pretty to cook on now.  Almost.  After all that work, I'll bet those cookies tasted especially sweet.

 

Frigidaire used to sell a kit of sleeves to remove and replace oven liners, tucking back insulation before inserting the liner again.  I used some stiff cardboard as well on a 1959 40" I did a few years back, worked like a charm.  Was your insulation still clean and intact?  Looked like it might have been from the pics.

 

Enjoy the new kitchen and beautiful range, it looks great.   You will really like that dishwasher elevated, I wish it would have worked in my kitchen space. 

 

[philr]

Wow! I'm a bit jealous! All you need now is a spray tube dishwasher to go with these.

 

[carmine]

Thanks all for the kind words.

Of course with use, a minor issue has revealed itself.

The fluorescent 36" bulb has started to cycle on/off rapidly (not rapidly enough to call it a "flicker"). Some reading on the interwebs said "replace the starter w/the bulb". Then I learned a 25W bulb wasn't that easy to find, at least at Home Depot... I could only find 30w bulbs. But the 25W starters were $1.97 for two, so I bought them. Installed it within 2 mins and was rewarded with the exact same problem.

Now it looks like the bulb is bad (looks pretty old, a GE if that was oem?).

I'm trying to decide if I should just throw in a 30W bulb? Throw in the bulb + 30W starter (HD also has those). Search harder for a 36", 25W bulb? Do I risk damaging the ballast with 5 more watts?

Any thoughts?