SMEV oven hard to light

[Brittany Dogs]

When I picked up my new TrailManor last year, the dealer made the comment "wow, I have never seen that oven before" meaning that at the time, the oven/stove was a make and model he has not seen before in the TrailManor units. OK my oven/stove is a SMEV which I believe is a foreign company under the Dometic parent company. The model is a CU434 and a search on the web only got me close but no cigar.

Here's my problem. When new the oven started up fine. It uses a sparker starter and does not have a pilot light. The instructions say to turn the oven knob to "light" and push it in while pressing the sparking button. The thermocoupler would allow me to release the knob after say 8-10 seconds.

Then this year my 10 seconds started to turn into 30 seconds, then a camp out later, maybe 60 seconds, then another camp out later, 2 or 3 minutes. Finally on my last trip, 8 minutes later of pushing the knob in, no joy, the oven just would not stay lit if I released the knob.

So the obvious first check should be the thermocoupler right? I cleaned it and that did nothing. The flame while I push the knob is normal, as good as it was new.

So I pulled the whole oven/stove out of the cabinet and found out that the whole unit is held together by about 30 pop rivets. Almost nothing could be disassembled unless I start drilling out a heck of a lot of rivets.

This is the part that gets FREAKY!

After turning the whole unit on its side, oven door down, to use a flashlight to look at the gas control knob inside and the burner assembly, then turning the oven on its side, to do more of "how am I going to fix this thing??" I felt a repair is useless unless I'm back home with more tools to remove 15 of the 30 rivets.

So I put the whole unit back into the cabinet, reconnect the main gas line and guess what?

The oven lights as good as new. And has now been lighting as good as new every time during my 10 night trip. I can release the oven heat knob after maybe 8 seconds.

The only thing I realistically did was turning the oven on two different sides, pointed a flashlight inside of it looking at the controls, and replaced the oven back into the cabinet.

It broke all by itself. I guess it can fix itself too. My magic flashlight is for sale for $1500 or best offer.

Does anyone have any ideas how this 14 month old oven fixed itself?