The door on my microwave oven suddenly stopped latching securely and the internal switch that detects the door being closed ceased to register. My wife and I were annoyed because this seemed like a very inexpensive cheap part of the microwave breaking and taking our a rather expensive appliance. So, time to fix it ourselves.
This turned out not to be a particularly difficult fix-it-yourself. But a little complex due to the necessary disassembly. First we needed to remove the microwave door.
For this microwave it turns out the key is a little piece of plastic which snaps into place near the top hinge.
Prying the key out carefully with a screw driver, the door can be lifted off the hinges
On the inside of the door is a plastic bezel running round the edge. Prying the outer edge of the door away from the bezel, it can be freed and removed. Next is a piece of metal shielding around the window. It’s too close to the latch mechanism to allow us to fix it but fortunately it’s only held in by a set of flexure catches which can be pryed out and then the metal frame lifted out.
Now we can finally see the latch mechanism. The latches are pulled down by a spring which is supposed to anchor to a pylon which is part of the molded plastic of the door. However this feature has broken off. It’s not too surprising given the amount of force the spring is constantly putting on it.
Applying a liberal amount of two part epoxy and adding some wooden splints on either side of the pylon we glue it back in place.
After the epoxy cures, we reassemble the door, put it back on the microwave and everything is working again!