basic residential fireplace newbie questions

[lingua]

Hi all,

So awesome to see an active forum on fireplaces here! After a gut out remodel on our first place I now can't get the fireplace going...it was working just fine before but I removed the wiring to clean at some point


There is gas coming from the local shut off valve but there is no gas coming though the valve from pressing the pilot. There's a slow leak at the line-valve connection (marked with blue tape) and that line is kinked at two bends, so first I was going to replace that line with a flex line. Sound right? Since I'm seeing both are common, how do I determine 3/8 vs. 1/2 line for that?

That said it was working fine before so maybe I'm wiring this wrong...mostly disconnected now but I had it with the thermocoupler's red wire to top screw and white wire to middle screw.
The wall switch had white wire to bottom screw (connected in pic) and red to top screw with thermocouple red. Does that sound right?

The nozzle from valve to burner piping was loose fitting so does that need to air tight?

Lastly, the burner is an inline one from the 80s. Now that I'm messing with this I see affordable burner kits that I'd like to try out. Are burners interchangeable?

Hopefully the pics show ok. Thanks!

[Gas-Xpress]

Burners are not interchangeable, your air shutter, on burner venturi, should be closed down to around .25" the venturi just slips over the burner orifice, not airtight, your wiring is correct, if the unit was disconnected you probably have air co ing through the pilot and it can take a while to purge, hold a lighter in front of the pilot if the air is purging it will push the flame away from it until fuel is present and it ignites. To be honest with you, from the look of your fireplace, paying an experienced fireplace repair person would be money well spent.