I am trying to resuscitate a very old "Detroit Jewel" 6-burner gas stove (teens or twenties), converting it to propane. I've successfully adjusted the burners to propane, but I had to remove and plug the tubes that lead to the 2 pilot light jets for the top burners because they were both broken and the jet was missing on one; since I've no idea how to ever locate replacements, I figure I can just use a barbecue lighter to light burners.
But now I find that the 2 valves that are used to "juice" (intensify) the pilot lights (by pushing a button on the front of the stove) are leaking gas out the front of the valves, so I'm trying to find a way to either remove those
2 valves or to rebuild them to keep them from leaking.Here's a photo of the outside front of the stove (one of the 2 "juicer" buttons is the one with the smoke stains above it):
The problem is that I can't unscrew the "juice" valves from the gas supply manifold pipe without first moving that same manifold pipe away from the front of the stove to provide clearance, and I can't move the gas supply manifold pipe because the outside keys on the 6 burner valves have set screws securing them to their respective valve stems, and those set screws are behind the stove face and aren't accessible (or at the least do not appear to be accessible) with the gas supply pipe in place.
I am wondering if I'm going at this the wrong way, and perhaps...
- there is some "trick" way all that all the valve stems (with keys) can be removed through the holes in the front of the stove... ie, maybe there's some trick way to remove the stem spring and a "keeper" from the back of each valve and simply pull each key and valve stem out from the front of the stove. That would allow me to shift the gas supply manifold rearward so I could then unscrew the "juicer" valves and insert plugs. But, what is the "trick"???
or,
- a similar "trick" could be used to pull just the "juicer" buttons & valve stems out through the hole in the stove front, clean them and lap them in their valve holes with lapping compound, then apply some stove valve grease and hope the leaks are gone when the valve stems are re-installed. But, the springs are not accessible from the rear, so this may not even be feasible.
Is there another way? Anybody have any words of wisdom?