[jere413]

It has gotten to where it takes up to 15 minutes to get the pilot light to light, and another 5 minutes of pushing the knob in to get a flame big enough to heat up the thermocouple. Since they are 16 years old, I assumed things just needed a good cleaning, so i took apart everything I could easily get to related to the pilot and cleaned it all out (didn't seem to be dirty though).

For a few days, things seemed back to normal. That is, it would only take pushing in and holding the knob in pilot position for 10-15 seconds before it could be lit, and it would quickly reach the desired size flame. However, after a couple of warm weeks in which we haven't needed to use the logs, the old problem has returned. I just spent almost 20 minutes getting the pilot to light and stay lit.

I'm convinced the issue is gas flow and not the ignitor since I can always see a good spark. And, once the pilot is lit, the rest of the system works perfectly.

Is it possible that the valve that I'm opening by pushing in the knob is not opening far enough? Is there something I can safely adjust? I'd really like to not spend several hundred $$ to replace a set that works perfectly, as long as I can get the pilot lit.