Creda Oven Door won't close properly

[James Noble]

Hi, I have a Creda Europa Solar Plus oven about 15 years old and the main oven door isn't closing properly.

The hinges are the same as this one

and I suspect that the spring in the hinges has weakened.

Basically, the bottom of the door doesn't pull in when the door is closed and has to be pushed to make a good seal. As the hinges are about GBP 17.00 each I wanted to make sure that I am right before buying them. There is no obvious wear in the hinge mechanism itself which makes me think the problem is weakened springs.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Bob Minchin]

These can be had for £10 on ebay - usually the best place for genuine spares on many makes

Maybe swap the hinges over and see if the fault changes? Can't help with the detail as my creda 25 year old oven uses the door catch to seal the oven door. That did fail once but was a broken spring.

Bob

[John]

Is the end at the top of your picture properly engaged in the oven?

[James Noble]

The simple answer is yes and I spent a lot of time trying to understand how the hinges worked.

The hook is simply to prevent the door opening past horizontal. The closing of the door seems to be as a result of the curve in the hook part nearest the hinge exerting pressure on a roller in the oven carcase which is why I suspect the spring has weakened.

In reply to Bob, I have swapped the hinges and it makes no difference. It only takes a little push to get the door to close.

[newshound]

I think weakened springs is quite likely, had a similar problem with a Kenwood oven and fiddled for ages before changing the springs, which cured it. There are numerous on-line suppliers, worth searching round for best price.

I had this simple minded view that the maximum oven temperature of ~ 220 C should not be hot enough to stress relieve the springs (when I rode Velocettes with Nimonic exhaust valves which run red hot you had to change the valve springs quite regularly). However, I found a proper metallurgist who explained that real (cheap) springs do relax because they are near to the yield stress around defects, cracks, and inclusions.

[John]

It may also be a broken roller. (runs on the curved arm in the side of the oven. Can be seen through the slot if you remove the door.