Alec is dismantling and rebuilding the venerable Weber BBQ. 11:41am
That was yesterday morning's Facebook update. It turns out to have generated a fair amount of interest. People wrote asking if I had blown myself up yet, commented that they had just bought a new BBQ rather than clean up the old one, and so on. I thought about buying a new one, but my old Weber Genesis 1000 was expensive when I bought it 12 years ago (around $500), and would have been even more expensive to replace ($799 at Home Depot). Aside from some rusting parts inside, the exterior was in good shape. So I ordered up replacement burners, flavor bars, and grills from Capital Appliance & BBQ, dismantled and cleaned the BBQ, and reassembled it.
Here's the BBQ.
And here are the rotten parts I removed. The flavour bars were so rusted that pieces had fallen into the drip pan below, and were collecting grease which causes fires. Notice that the parts of the burners that were inside the kettle are rusted (although still pretty solid!), while the parts on the outside are like new — shiny shiny shiny! They're nice solid pieces of stainless steel, but the traces of moisture in liquid propane cause the burners to eventually rust.
And here are the shiny new burners installed, plus new stainless flavour bars, and and stainless grills. I decided to try the stainless bars rather than the porcelain coated, at the recommendation of the folks at Capital BBQ.
And all put back together.
Alec is done with rebuilding BBQ. New burners, flavor bars, grills, and a (relatively) thorough cleaning. Now VERY VERY dirty. 2:39pm
Total time — 3:00 hours. After reassembly, it worked like new again. It's capable of heating to inferno temperatures for searing steaks, and also the gentlest of slow cooking temperatures. Total cost to refurbish was in the neighborhood of $400 — half the price of a new Weber — and my perfectly good old barbeque hasn't been prematurely consigned to the landfill.
The toughest part about the whole job was cleaning and cleanup. The shower was a welcome relief, but even so a day later I've still got dirt ground into my skin and fingernails.
June 24th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Alec, this is so funny as I had the same grill (purchased also at Home Depot in Bellevue about 12 years ago) and rehabbed it just like you did. I didn’t end up replacing the burners but everything else looked about like your grill’s parts. I also spraypainted the red to black a few years ago. :)
Weird parallel world.
June 24th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
;) I cooked 12 lbs of beef ribs tonight. We had an orgy of rib eating, and it was fantastic. End of the day — it’s tough to be critical of the Weber.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:48 am
We looked at the Webers in Canadian Tire yesterday - the most expensive with a sideburner, rotisserie etc. was $549, too big for our deck. We did not get any BBQ but will see what they have to offer at the Depot.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I can’t say enough good things about the Weber, Ma.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
I was given this same exact model today by my father-in-law. All the internals are missing but he ordered all new parts; he just never had time to put it together. I’m glad to see one come back to life. Do you have any tips on connecting the burners? The rest of it seems straight forward.
Did you repaint the interior? If so, what did you use? Finally, did you replace the feed hose from the tank with a new one?
July 8th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Hi Matthew,
The burner kit provided by Weber has detailed instructions on how to reconnect them. It’s pretty simple, though. You remove the assembly on the right hand side that has the gas control (there are a couple of screws on the oven that it’s fastened in with, slide the new burners in, and then reattach that assembly.
My hose didn’t need replacing, but I did check it using soapy water.
As for paint, I didn’t and wouldn’t. It gets VERY hot inside (last night I was doing steaks, and the interior was past 600 degrees, according to my thermometer) and paint would likely burn off, flavoring or worse yet, poisoning, your food. The flaking you see on the inside is not paint, but rather an accumulation of carbon from years of use.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
WOnder how to get rid of the white powdery appearance on outside of the fire box. I see it on your “before” picture, but you do not mention it.
Can it be cleaned off(and with what)? I was thinking of painting it with high temp auto engine paint to get it looking black again.
Any ideas?
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Don,
The material on the outside is residue from oven cleaner from a previous cleaning. It makes a mess out of the aluminum firebox. You could try painting it, but I can’t tell you what the result would since I didn’t do that myself…
A
August 6th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Have an 1987 Genesis 5 stiil works great have replaced grill and flavourizer bars only with stainless. Definitely go stainless bars for grilling .
Only parts that have rusted and need to be replaced again drip pan support rails.
WEBER IS BAR FAR THE BEST 30 years experience from original charcoal kettle.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:35 am
i’m just about to rebuild my 1997 g-1000.
i see replacements for the burner tubes and ignitor kit, but what about that manifold piece inbetween? did you replace this? i don’t see it on any of the sites.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:48 am
Hi Russell — i didn’t see a manifold when I did mine, but I wasn’t looking either. Mine was in good shape. The biggest problem I had was that some of the gas jets had corroded to the point of closure, and thus the burners needed to be replaced.
November 21st, 2008 at 3:29 am
Alex I have weber that looks just like your’s I but it’s Natural Gas, in any case the white stuff on the outside can be removed by just buy rubbing the outside with a light oil. I did it on mine and it looks great. I did as you did I rebuilt it as well. Weber is a great grill!
November 21st, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Thanks for the tip Ricky!