ApplianceFrigidaire Range
ModelFEF352DWE
Level of DifficultyEasy
Time to do repair15 - 30 mins
Age of Appliance5 - 10 years
Tools
Screw drivers
I started to smell burning electrical smell from the burner area and heard a "buzzing" sound from the burner control while the burner was on. Pulled the element and noticed that the wire coil end of the left element was burned and pitted from arcing.
Pulled the range top up, used a phillips screwdriver to remove the terminal block clip from the range top. Upon inspecting the burner terminal block, I saw the brass wiper was missing from one side of the left slot, and there was considerable heat damage around the slot opening.
The terminal block being replaced was already replaced earlier for the same problem. The appliance repair folks recommended that we use light cookware on the burner. Instead, ensure both element leads are fully inserted into the terminal block.
I turned the power off at the breaker, used a utility knife to carefully slit the heat shrink tubing on the existing replacement, unscrewed the ceramic wirenuts, removed the old block, straightened out the range wires, slid the new heatshrink over the range wires, then twisted the new terminal block wires to the range wires. Screwed on the ceramic wirenuts, slid the heatshrink tubing over the wirenuts, and used matches to shrink it tight.
The package contains an instruction sheet with simple instructions.
Once the new terminal block was installed and the element terminals were fully seated, the "buzzing" from the burner control disappeared.