We had a spill that went down into the cooktop controls and shorted out one of the switch valves. A new cooktop would be too costly and so would a repair service. We opted to fix it ourselves.
Normally this repair would take 5 minutes, we discovered a glitch which caused it to be a bit more challenging. The hardest part wa
... Read mores removing the old switch plate that covered the actual switches. It is held in place by 4 retainers (one under each knob) and 4 nuts, which secure the glass top of the control panel along with its attached rubber base (designed to keep out spills). Our builder had stripped one of the plate's fixed screw shafts and we had to use a dremel to cut off one of the four nuts that held it in place. This in turn damaged one of the retainers that holds the plate in place. Now that we had it apart, the hard part was over.
To remove old part:
To fix this problem we shut off the gas and electric supply. Next we removed the knobs by pulling them directly upward (the downdraft control knob was tougher to remove than the other knobs). Next we removed all 4 nuts holding the switch plate retainers in place. We removed the stainless steel retainers. Then we removed the glass top of the control panel along with its attached rubber base, which (normally) seals the control unit from spills. This revealed the switch plate. We removed the two screws (star screw driver needed here) that held the down draft knob assembly in place. We removed the two screws that held the plate to the frame of the cooktop. We removed the plate.
Then we located the shorted out switch valve. We marked the 4 plug-in wires with masking tape and directions to ensure that we would replace them in the correct sockets later. We unplugged these 4 wires from their terminals and pulled the switch valve off from the control stem/shaft (the shaft is where the burner control knob sits).
To install new part: (reverse of the above)
We put the new valve switch top side up on the control stem/shaft (it is self-positioning due to the shape of the control stem - only fits one way). Then we plugged in the four wires onto their respective terminals, using our masking tape notes for reference. Next we replaced the switch plate, reinstalling the downdraft control assembly screws first and then the screws holding the plate to the cooktop. Then we repostioned the glass top of the control panel along with its attached rubber base. Next we placed the four retainers back in their sockets (where each of the four control knobs would be) and secured them with the four nuts. We put the control knobs back in place, turned on the gas and electric, tested all four burners and we were good to go.
