1965-ish Trav'ler oven

Check for an inline valve to the oven. Some ovens will light without the pilot, if that's the case, the pilot could be "off". Also clean the oven parts and the thermocouple. It could be dusty, and not sensing heat. Not sure what else it could be. I've not had too many Trav'ler ovens.

The oven valve (big oven knob) itself could be failing... Not quite dead, but iffy. That's the only thing I can think of other than debris/spider webs in the lines or pilot. It is quite common in these old stoves to have oven failure.

Sweneau, I never did get anywhere with this problem, we rarely use the oven. We have used it by cranking it up and leaving the door cracked which keeps the burner lit...just have to pay attention to the temp (meat thermometer inside oven). Please let me know if you get yours fixed, and how you did it.

Thanks to you.

What was the fix?

In these ovens there are two pilots that operate out of the same orifice:

The Standing Pilot - (this is the pilot that you are referencing not staying on) This pilot is designed to keep a flame in the oven until the thermostat calls for heat.

The Heater Pilot - This pilot turns on when the Freon bulb (Temperature sensor) in the top of the oven cools down to ~25 degrees below the desired temperature in the oven, once this pilot ignites it starts heating up the mercury bulb (safety sensor) which opens the safety valve allowing LP to flow to the burner and ignite off the pilots.

There are a couple of issues that I can think you may be having if the standing pilot is not staying lit:
The pilot assembly is dirty (as previously mentioned) - The solution to this may be to actually remove the pilot assembly and ensure it is very clean rather then just blowing some air into the oven.
Specifically clean the pilot orifice, this would be the most common issue for this, if there is a build up of soot around the orific it will create a gas build up behind the pilot flame, with a build up of gas behind the standby pilot and not the heater flame this means when the heater flame goes out it will create a flash back and the standby pilot will put itself out.
The Thermostat is gone - once the freon bulb in the top of the oven senses the oven is up to temperature it expands closing the thermostat, if the thermostat is gone then when this bulb expands it will completely put out the pilot (This is not as common as the other suggestions)
Someone has messed with the pilot adjustments (if there are adjustments on this model) - If there is a screw on the side of the thermostat or inline to the pilot assembly and someone has adjusted it not realizing what they were doing therefore reducing the flame; This is not to be confused with the thermostat adjustment which is in the center of the knob on the temperature adjustment knob


Not thermocouple - There is no thermocouple on mercury based ovens; as soon as you turn the t-stat knob on these mercury ovens it should be letting gas through to the standby pilot. If it was the thermocouple the second you release the temperature set knob everything would go out, the burner would never light

I doubt it would be the Freon bulb - this works through heat expansion, when the freon heats up it expands and shuts the gas off to the heater pilot and burner assembly. This could be creating an issue if the capillary tube is kinked.

As vikx mentioned; some ovens do light without a STANDING pilot (mercury free ovens) but these are newer style ovens, yours will be the older style with mercury in it. These ovens only will allow gas through as long as the user is depressing the knob (This is opening the t-stat valve and igniting the standby pilot until it the thermocouple heats up to hold the valve open).

Lets start with these suggestions, let me know what comes of these.