Okay, I have a roughly 7 year old Whirlpool Super Capacity 465 Electric range/oven. Model number rf3020xkq.
A couple of days ago I was cleaning the oven out (it is manual clean) and had a momentary lapse of genius :). I thought I had unplugged it and unscrewed the bake element and proceeded to pull it out. Well, it wasn’t unplugged and the part of the element just beyond the male end of it (i.e. the part that holds the male connector to the actual round element itself) touched the frame of the oven and well, yes, you guessed it I got quite a large white/blue sparks and flames show. I know, idiot I am, but that is besides the point. So, after I unplugged it, I took a closer look and it appeared that the only thing that happened was the the piece that I was referring to above had burned in half - essentially the male end of the element was now in the female wire end. I was able to get it out easily and carefully examined the wires and connection points and to my surprise, they all looked perfectly fine - there was no charring, burning, or melting at all. I took the cover for the wires off the back of the oven and checked that out - again all looked fine.
I did NOT check the wiring in the top part of the unit (which I suppose I should).
I purchased another element, put it in last night and turned it on - it worked and heated fine; however, I only turned it on 150 and only left it on long enough to be sure it was heating and then turned it off.
I come home this evening and my wife showed me two plates of biscuits that were burned badly..This is not usual for her bc she knows how to cook. She said that the oven never stopped heating. We do not have a preheat option, but the oven usually turns off after it gets to the temp of the manual dial is set to. Apparently it didn’t. The knobs were also quite warm to the touch, which is unusual.
Another thing I noticed was that the biscuits were really burned on the top and not the bottom at all, which makes me think that the broiler was on. My wife is certain the broiler was not on.
What else could have happened here and how can I test it? I do have a multimeter and know how to use it, just not sure what to check on the oven. Thanks!
Mike