Toaster Repair

 

Toaster Innards

Our toaster suffered a malfunction a couple of weeks (months?) ago. One of the arms that lift the bread up after it's done toasting became uneven which made retrieving your toast a little tricky. I was ready to order a new one, but I thought I would see if I could fix it. I mean, I can't break it if it's already broken. I sat down to fix it on Friday, and, surprise, surprise, I was successful. The mechanical lift parts are the flimsiest bits of gimcrack you can imagine, but being as their job is to lift two pieces of bread I don't suppose you need anything stronger. And we have had it for a long time, ten years at least. So, good enough. 

The toaster has all the working bits at one end. The lift arms are cantilevered from a vertical carriage. The problem was that the lift arms are attached to the carriage by little metal tabs less than an eighth of an inch square. These are inserted in slots in the carriage and then twisted to hold them in place. One of the upper tabs had not been twisted enough and had worked loose allowing the arm to droop. So the actual repair was easy enough, it consisted of inserting the wayward tab back into the slot and giving it a twist with a pair of pliers.

Toaster Bits

Getting there, by which I mean getting the cover off, was a bit of a chore. There were six screws in the bottom. Two of them were concealed by little rubber feet that were about a half inch long and shoved into half inch deep holes. The awl on my Swiss Army Knife got them out. Spit got them back in.

There were also two screws securing the power cord. I took them out because I have the machine upside down and I'm taking out screws. They look almost identical to the screws holding the case together, but they are not. Found that out when I am putting them back in and the power code screw won't tighten up. Stupid, over engineered gimcrack.

KitchenAid Toaster

It's a KitchenAid. I don't particularly like it. It's one of these modern safety toasters that won't burn you but takes forever and a day to deliver your toast. Someday I'm going to get one of those oxy-acetylene powered toasters that will serve up your toast in milliseconds.