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Get an Over the Range Microwave Unstuck

November 13th, 2009 Leave a comment Go to comments

The other day a friend asked me to help remove an over the range microwave. What we thought was going to be an easy task turned out to be frustrating because we could not get it unstuck.

The darn thing was just stuck after we removed the installation screws at the top. Every space saver microwave that I had ever installed or removed, over a range, was always held in place by the bracket on the wall and the two bolts in the top.

This one was a Kenmore brand and to our surprise it was not budging after we took the top bolts out completely.

There was no vent connected so we knew that that was not the problem. There were no other screws in the cabinet to be seen anywhere. There was plenty of slack in the electrical chord.

We pulled and lifted yanked and pushed, still nothing happened. It would drop down in the front, but would not pull forward at all.

We looked high and low and could not see anything holding it in position. Yet, every time we tried to drop it down it would not come off of the wall bracket. We even got the flashlight out to look and could not see anything holding it in place.

We finally got the over the range microwave unit unstuck by pulling pushing, jiggling and wiggling it until it let loose.


It wasn’t until we had it on the floor and was working on taking it apart to repair the fan motor that we noticed the safety latch and pull lever.

There was an easy way to release the hook that was designed to latch on to the larger metal hanging bracket attached to the wall. If we had taken the time to really look closely we would have seen the bright chrome piece.

At the top of the appliance the microwave has a long removable plastic decorative cover. That cover must be removed and then on the left side of the unit there is a small chrome wire that must be pulled.

When you pull on this safety release bar the microwave will then come down from the wall and cabinetry effortlessly.

So, if you have a microwave that is over the stove and it is stuck, that’s how to get a microwave down that is made by Kenmore. Why in the world they put this little irritating device on the appliance makes no sense to me what so ever.

The only reasoning that makes any sense to me is that it was designed for one person to do the installation. That doesn’t even make sense because the stinking things are so heavy, why would anyone want to install it without help?

So, I’ll leave you with one last tip. The reason we uninstalled the microwave was that the exhaust fan was not working. When we finally got the unit unstuck, we then took the cover off by removing many screws.

Once inside the unit we were able to remove the fan and give the bearings a shot of grease and then the fan worked fine. There was a special tool that was required because we encountered a small keeper ring.

By uninstalling the microwave we saved several dollars by giving the fan bearings a little lubricant.

Categories: Uncategorized
  1. December 20th, 2009 at 10:37 | #1

    Heh. That’s funny. I would never have thought about a safety lever holding the microwave in place. Was there any damage to anything once it was unstuck?

  2. admin
    December 21st, 2009 at 10:18 | #2

    No damage Robert…boy were we ever lucky

  3. admin
    April 14th, 2010 at 06:45 | #3

    Robert, no damage to anything. Although the removal process was a bit frustrating, we never lost or composure and worked in an intelligent manner.

  4. Derek
    May 1st, 2016 at 14:06 | #4

    Thanks so much – just ran into this same issue and resolved it easily thanks to your post!

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