I have an old Modern Maid oven, model FDU158. There are no original parts to be found for the broiler, slo-cook, or bake elements anymore. The broiler element burned out a while ago and I was able to find a close matching whirlpool element that only required me to hacksaw the original's mounting frame to get it to work.

I now have a similar problem with the bake element. It does not heat up and fails a continuity test so I'm assuming that it's gone. There are other bake elements that I could use in its place but the problem is that the oven also has a slo-cook element that has its own distinctive shape and would not allow these other elements to sit properly. We do not use the slow-cook feature on the oven at all, so I was wondering if I could safely remove the slow-cook element, tape off the leads that connect to the element and seal up the holes so that heat would not escape from the oven and insulation did not come into the oven.

Bad idea? Risky? Unsafe?

Thanks very much for the fast reply and suggestion. I am not at home right now so I can't look to see how easy removing the wires entirely would be. What I did not mention before is that the oven is a built-in so I do not have access to the back of it (without a lot of trouble). That said, I still might be able to find the other end of the wire, disconnect it, and pull it through. If that's not possible and I need to leave the wire in place, then let me explore what you suggested a bit more. Another thing I did not mention is that the current bake element plugs into a lead on the end of the wire and the wire only pokes through a small hole when you pull on the bake element to remove it. So, when you say use a ceramic wire nut, are you thinking of having the wire pulled through the hole and the ceramic wire nut being left inside the oven cavity? If so, how about a different approach? What about cutting off the ends of my bad element and using those to plug into the leads of the slow-cook element that I want to remove? I would end up with two element "ends" poking out into the oven cavity but the wires would still be back in their usual places, the hole would be covered up as it is normally, and there would be nothing blocking my new bake element. This, effectively, would be like having the slow cook element in place but with it burned out to the point of being physically broken. Does this make sense? (Again, only if I can't get the wire properly removed.)

No concerns, I think you have the coon cornered in the right tree!
Sorry for the delay, I have been running service calls today. Yes it sounds good to me.