So, the timer on our oven has been driving us crazy, especially my wife. It has been rattling more and more for some time and had finally reached the point where even I thought something needed to be done. For a year or more if we hit the front panel of the oven or slammed the oven door it would shake whatever was loose back into place so that it would quiet down. Now it had gotten to the point where the most that would accomplish would be to shift the sound from being incredibly annoying to being merely annoying.

So, I got some tools and set to work. I found five screws around the edge of the control panel which held the panel to the face of the oven. Getting those out was relatively easy. However, the panel would only pull a couple of inches from the cabinet because there was a lever which locks the oven door for the cleaning cycle (does anyone actually use that? maybe I shouldn't say things like that out loud) and the panel couldn't slide past that. I tried to pull the knob off of the end of the lever, but it was very firmly attached, so that didn't seem to be possible. To get better access to the back of the control panel looked like it might require lots more dismantling, perhaps even pulling the oven out of the cabinet. I decided to see what could be done with the small gap I had.

I got a flashlight and pointed it down into the gap by standing it on the shelf of the cabinet above the oven which made it easier to see. I got a step stool so that I could work and see more comfortably without standing on tiptoe to look down from above the oven. My wife walked over to the circuit breaker box and flipped the breaker so that I could reach back there safely (one of these days I'll remember to do that before getting that shocking reminder of why it is a good idea to do that). When the noise stopped with the flipping of the breaker we knew I was on the right track.

First we tried spraying some canned air into the gap at the clock mechanism. We hoped that maybe there was some dirt or something that was interferring and causing the noise. Unfortunately, restoring power quickly showed that this hope was forlorn.

Next I looked at the wiring and connections as best I could. I found that there were actually two different mechanisms which were closely related. In addition to the clock with it's timer there are a couple of controls for delayed starts and for timing the cleaning cycle. My analysis of the mechanism (and it does appear to be mechanical, no modern electronics on this oven) showed that these other timer functions actually worked based on gears connected to the noisy clock. However, the wiring for controlling turning the oven on and off was not connected to the clock itself, only to these speciallized timers which are driven through the mechanical connection from the clock. Thus, any electrical mechanisms which turn the oven on and off shouldn't really be affected by whether the clock is running or not (other than that they won't be able to actually turn the oven on and off at specified times, which, again, we haven't done anyway).

Armed with this knowledge I took my wire cutters and snipped one of the wires leading to the clock itself. If I'd correctly understood what I was looking at this should disable the noise since the clock would not be running but not otherwise affect any of the other oven features which we use. So, the breaker was flipped to give it a try.

The clock made no noise with power restored. So far so good. Next I turned the dial control to "Bake" and the little light that indicates that the oven is not yet up to temperature came on. This looked promising. Finally I reached into the oven and held my hand close to the heating element. Yes! The heating element was clearly getting warmer! Success!

So I was able to break the clock so that it stopped annoying us without ruining the oven. I am once again a domestic hero and all is right with the world. Ok, with the kitchen. All right, with the oven. Whatever. I do what I can.