Suburban oven pilot will not stay lit

[edelstar]

I have a Suburban 3 burner range, model SRNA3LBBEZ purchased in 2018. There is an issue which is driving me to drink. I can light the oven pilot fine, and the main burner lights as expected. At some point, I can hear and see the pilot sputter and eventually when the main burner shuts down, the pilot will go out as well.

I did some searching and found a few posts that outline my exact problem. The most useful posts indicated that some Suburban ovens had a bad pilot assembly with too small an orifice and when the oven warmed up, the orifice would close up and restrict the flow of propane. I went out and bought a replacement pilot (part 161209) but after I install this, the lit pilot is a big yellow flame rather than the nice blue flame of the original pilot. I've checked all over the oven gas circuit and I don't see an adjustment anywhere. The new pilot looks just like the original pilot except for maybe the size of the pinhole.

Someone please help me fix this. I've called Suburban and the nice woman basically told me that she can't help me at all. The only thing they can do is refer me to an authorized service center. My range is in a remote location and taking it to a service center is not really an option. How a manufacturer can refuse to support their own product is really beyond me.

[edelstar]

Here are some frame grabs from the sputtering video:

Here you see both the main burner and pilot lit


Then the pilot goes out


Then the pilot lights up again


This pilot light on/off will take place in less than one second.

[IAMICHABOD]

edelstar wrote:
If I can figure out how/where to host some images, I will show photos

Here tryThis Link to post some pictures.

[edelstar]

Here is the original pilot (burner removed for testing) right when it's lit and before it heats up enough to start sputtering



Here is the replacement (exact part number) pilot with the big yellow flame.



In both these pictures, I have released the control knob and the thermocouple has gotten hot enough to hold open the pilot control valve. I also have a video showing the pilot sputtering while the main burner is on, but I'm not sure how to link that here. The forum doesn't like external linking.

[edelstar]

Thanks for all the replies. A bit more information:

- This oven has had this issue since new
- This pilot uses a thermocouple, not a thermopile
- This issue happens when the temperature knob is set to a bake temperature

This does NOT appear to be a thermocouple issue. When the pilot starts to sputter, I can manually push in the little button at the gas valve (essentially the same thing that happens when you push in the knob to light) with no change to the pilot flame.

The new pilot tube (same part number as the original) burns with a big yellow flame like there is not enough air. There does not appear to be any way to adjust the mixture.

[Dick_B]

Why would you want to light the oven. We use ours for storage!

[bob213]

Are you turning the knob all the way off or back to pilot?

[ktmrfs]

there should be a rod that sits in the pilot flame. that rod is a thermoelectric pile. when it gets hot it is a electric source. the output of the thermoelectric pile keeps the gas valve open. So.

1) make sure the thermopile is in the flame.
2) make sure the pilot is burning well. these have a small orifice so any dust, dirt, spider webs, rust can result in a low flame pilot.
3) those thermopiles do fail, not often but the do. usually the failure mode is reduced voltage output which will result in the pilot extenquising. if it fails with no output, you can't keep the pilot buring w/o holding in the pilot switch.

[enblethen]

sounds like the thermostat assembly thermal couple is failing.
tThermostat
Parts list
It might be worth trying to clean the pilot orifice.