Craigslist Score! (Genesis 1000 for $80) - now what?


 

Ryan Gardner

TVWBB Fan
Ok.. I picked up a Genesis 1000 (late 90's model - wood handle on the lid, durawood side tables)

There was some confusion on it. I'm not sure how much they knew about the grill except for what they paid for it originally... etc - they claimed in the listing that it was both NG and LP - but when I went to pick it up they wanted to only give me it with an NG hose attached.

The side of the grill clearly says "LP" - and I'm not sure if they ever did run it via NG or what. (Is there a way to check if there is a conversion kit installed? There is a gray hose coming out that looks relatively new that they called the NG hose.)

They didn't want to give me the NG to LP attachment - for the $75 they told me I could take it for - they wanted me to pay an extra $50 for that piece (which they apparently bought from Home Depot for $90 a few weeks ago.).

At that point, since I only had $80 cash on me I was pretty sure I wasn't going to also score the propane tank / regulator so I offered $60 for the grill by itself and she called her husband and countered by saying "just take it all for $80" [by all of it, I mean the grill + the connector piece - but the LP tank was never on the table it seems])

Had I had more cash, I would have given them more for it - the grill is in remarkable condition. But... I was expecting to get it all (plus the tank) for $75 since that's what was in the original post I sent a "Hey, if nobody buys this I'll take it for this much..." email to - apparently they dropped the price on their listing and parted out the different pieces of it, but I hadn't read any of that so that's wher the confusion was.

I don't think it was them trying to upsell me - I think it was just honest misunderstanding.

Now... that being said...

What should I do with this thing now? I will need both an LP tank and a regulator. Where should I get those, and what kind of regulator do I need?

Although I burn around 100 pounds of charcoal a month in my grilling fetish, I have yet to own a gas grill... so I'm a total gas novice.

I'll post some pics tomorrow of the various connectors that I DO have, so maybe someone can help me sort out exactly what it is I got my hands on and what I need to do to get it up and running at optimal condition.


So - questions for now:

- I am planning to drive this grill with LP. My NG line is less than 50 linear feet away through a plastic fence - but I'm reasonably sure that running a new NG line is not a DIY project and I'm assuming it is expensive to run the line.

1. Is there any chance that this clearly-labeled LP grill would be an NG-capable grill by the addition of just a hose fitting?
2. If there is something else that would have been done to the grill to make it NG - where should I check?
3. Would driving an NG-converted LP grill with LP work ok? (they obviously had an LP tank attached to it)

I suppose I could offer them $50 for their LP tank and regulator - since I would know that it would at least connect up the grill OK - but I'm not sure if they would have spent the time to make sure they had the right PSI on the regulator... etc. to make it work optimally... Even if $50 is above the market price for their LP tank, I wouldn't mind giving them a bit more since I feel like I basically stole this grill from them.

(I haven't fired it up yet, but it looks like it's in very nice shape)

4. Where is the best place to buy a regulator? Do I need to do it online, or would a local hardware store or big box retailer (like Home Depot) have what I want? - and oh... What exactly is it I want?

5. What's the best place to buy an LP tank?

I think I already know the answer, but they probably don't make NG tanks for grilling, right? CNG out here is really cheap - $0.63 per gallon - and there is a CNG filling station nearby... (I know that because one of my friends who has a 10-MPG jeep and a 60 mile daily commute is now going ga ga over CNG vehicles)

As always - thanks for any info!
 
I've done some more digging, and it seems that if they did a proper conversion from an LP grill to a NG grill, they would have either replaced the valve orifices - or they would have drilled them.

If the grill does have larger orifices, it's going to run hotter than it would if it had the LP orifices.

I'm not sure that they did a proper conversion, or ever even used NG on the grill... and in my case, I don't care too much if the low, medium, high and high are more like medium, high, higher - since I wont do any low and slow on the grill.

http://www.weber.com/bbq/pub/shop/product/view.aspx?ProductID=1022

The official weber QCC1 connection seems like it is the best candidate for the job - which kind of makes me sad that the last people spend $90 to get some crazy NG-hose-to-propane-thing when they could have just spent $30 and gotten the right thing to start with.
 
The outside of the grill says it wants pressure of 10.5 column inches - good thing I double checked that - because I almost bought some "Bayou Classic 10psi regulator" - which would not have been a good idea.

The conversion factor from column inches to psi is apparently 0.03613 - which means that 10.5 column inches is roughly 0.5 psi (it's actually 0.379365 psi) - so I think 10 PSI would definitely be a bad idea because it would put too much pressure on the internal regulators.

(Those "Bayou Classic" things must suck down propane like crazy)
 
I just bought a Charbroil regulator from Lowes and used the adapters that the previous owner had on to connect to their NG hose. I teflon-taped the male pieces, but not the flare pieces - and bubble tested it... No bubbles
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So - just fired it up for the first time. Since the flame dials are continuous, even if they did bore out the orifices for NG (which I'm guessing they didn't) it wouldn't be a big deal for me - since I don't need to low-and-slow on a gas grill... that's what my WSM is for!
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It got to 500 degrees within 10 minutes, and was still climbing up slowly - I'm guessing I could have gotten it up to 550 or 600 (the gauge on it only goes to 550 of course)

The grates have a little rust on them, but it's in one corner that I rotated to be the back right corner. The flavorizer bars also have a little bit of rust - but nothing major. Considering it would cost me as much to get new flavorizer bars and a new set of grates as the entire grill cost me - I think I'll live with them for a while
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I'm still kind of baffled why the previous owner would have dropped any money on the piece that they did to attempt to get it to work with propane when they could have just used the adapters and hooked it up to a regulator directly.
 
Ryan-how about posting a few pics of the grill, the NG line, the mods you've done, etc. and you might get more response to your post. I've rebuilt a few Genesis 1000's a Junior and a couple Silver B's. Even picked up on a couple NG 1000's. I used to have a Propane smoker and would pick up POS grills just for the LPG tanks.
Have you called Weber CS? They are your best friend when it comes to determining if its LP or NG plumbed. As far as the Bayou Classic, its probably a High pressure regulator for a Turkey fryer.
 

 

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