Still not Chillin’

Tommy not a fixer. A thief stole his crown and poisoned his work. In order to drive from Krakow to Zakopane we had to switch the fridge’s power source over from gas to car battery. Sadly the fridge would not relight despite the presence of an ignition spark. The conclusion reached was this was due to a gas problem. Whatever about feeling comfortable and knowledgeable about twiddling some wires, dealing with a gas problem is slightly bewildering. So I stubbornly refused to give in and took the fridge out again. The gas flow was sickeningly fine along the inlet pipe. There was no leak detected. I refused to take apart the thermal heater unit, where the gas jet, ignition gun and thermocouple are housed, as I might not be able to put it back together. Of course the only way to know if the fridge is fixed is to reinstall it as described previously. Did this and still no flame. I took the fridge out again with my Spartan tools and this time removed and blew out some rusty debris from the thermal heater unit. Reinstalled it, this time a little faster as I now have a system in place!! Finally got the bugger lit. Unfortunately I am none the wiser, just perhaps a little lucky and a lot stubborn. No jubilation this time. Does anybody know if the gas jet that propels the gas into the thermal heater chamber can deteriorate, say after 20 years and cause a malfunction in normal operation procedures? I know the sensible option would be to take it to a specialist who knows about gas and appliances. We are considering our options regarding the fridge as we are going to run out of camping gaz again, and then we wont be able to use the fridge anyway. We are pondering the possibilities of living through Bulgaria/Greece without a fridge in august. Any ideas?