I need to replace the old round igniter on my Kenmore gas oven (the lower bake igniter). The igniter is attached by two screws to a bracket on the burner. These two screws, though are on the bottom and there is about 1/2 inch of space between the bottom and the heat deflecting pan which lays under the burner. There is not enough clearance and no way to get at those two bottom facing screws to unscrew the old igniter. How to I get those screws off? Do I need to continue disassembling the sheet-metal parts underneath the burner so I can get to the screws??

Additional: I have read that I need to remove the burner in order to get at these bottom screws on the igniter. The Suggestions have been to remove the bottom pan-storage drawer, then remove the two screws (and the lock nut) holding the bracket to the back wall, then you can pull the burner up and out. Problem is, you cannot possibly get to the two bracket screws because they are behind the vertical part of the burner tube and there is absolutely NO clearance to get them out - in fact, you can barely even see them, much less get at them (and, even if you could, you'd never be able to put them back in).

Another poster said he removed the one screw that faces forward at the bottom of the burner tube, then could lift the burner up 1/4" and out into the oven space. On this Kenmore, there appears to be a metal pin sticking out the back of the vertical part of the burner tube (it seems to be part of the burner tube itself), and protrudes through a small oval slot in the vertical part of the bracket. Because of this, I cannot pull the burner up (after removing the one screw at the bottom of the burner) because the pin stops any upward movement of the burner. Catch-22 here.

What can I do?

Ok, Folks here's an update: This might not be the best answer, but it worked for me. I took a special pair of sheet-metal bending vice grips that I had (they have very wide and very flat "jaws" made for bending sheet-metal), clamped them onto the upper (horizontal) part of the bracket that's above the burner tube, then gently bent that part of the bracket upward by about 1/4 inch. This was sufficient extra space to allow me to pull the burner tube up and into the oven space when I could then get at the igniter screws. What a pain. I swear, just like with cars, engineers should be forced to wrench on their creations to better understand the idea of bad designing!