Filthy, dirty, G1K


 
T

T Waite

TVWBB Super Fan
A few weeks ago I picked up an older Genesis 1000 with the idea of rehabbing it. The grill suffers from the typical maladies, a rotted through frame cross member, paint burned off, bottom pan slides rusted, etc.

I am no stranger to projects. I love conversions and making something out of nothing. I like hard, but simple is fun too. I don't give up.

But I stand before you today a broken and dejected man. A man that is currently being beaten down by...

...crud. And a lot of it.

I don't think the guy who owned this grill ever cleaned it once. Scraping it down resulted in the better part of a 2-1/2 gallon galvanized bucket being filled. Since then I have accomplished only two things: Complete disassembly, and more cleaning.

The problem is the sooty baked on stuff. Now, before you say: "Hey, that's easy!", let me tell you what I've tried:

  • Enclosed the parts in a plastic garbage bag with a cup of ammonia and let the fumes work for a full week. (this worked with my kettle, took only a day)
  • Took the parts to the car wash, soaked them in engine cleaner, and blasted them off. Result was about 15% clean.
  • Covered them in oven cleaner, put them back in the plastic bag overnight, scrubbed and hosed them down. Might be at 30%
  • Put the parts in a plastic bin with boiling water and a good dose of Ajax Dish Soap and soaked for two days.
  • Wire brush, grill cleaners, SOS pads, etc.

Still can't get it all off. To be fair, the lid is looking better. It's probably about 50% on the inside and I think one (two?) more pass with the oven cleaner might do it. The bottom pan, drip pan, bracket are pretty decent.

The grates and grill body are a lost cause. It's like concrete. I've chipped at the grates with the side of a putty knife, hacking like a hatchet. My next try is going to be pouring kerosene on them and lighting them on fire in the hope of turning it to ash. That is, of course, unless you can save me from myself.

The grill is worth saving. The burners still have a lot of life left. He had put new SS burners, flavorizers, and grates on. Not sure when, but they're all in decent shape. he had also fashioned some new bottom pad slides out of what appears to be 20 ga. stainless and installed one, I have the other one.

Hopefully one of you has the magic ingredient. How can I get the rest of this stuff off?

I shoulda' kept it all and mailed it to him....
 
I have a theory that the reason you can pick up such quality weber gassers at low prices is that some people at about the 10+ year mark, decide that it is 'easier' to not have to clean, get rid of the old, and buy a new Weber.

So we end up with somebodies greasy disgusting mess for a good price.

Before I take the gassers apart now, I first give them a plastic scrape out. Then, particularly for the grates, run them flat out for a good period of time. Do a pizza cook if you feel guilty about the gas use. The ultra high heat seems to burn to a fine powder most of the rubbish on the SS grates and flavorizer bars in particular, which then brushes off. The inside of the lid I tend not to worry about too much- it seems to flake off over a few high heat clean cooks mostly. The inside of the cookbox, I take out of the frame and try and clean the remaining gunk with boiling water ( commercial steam gun might work?). The cookbox outside and lid sides you take back to bare AL with a cup brush on an angle grinder or similar. Inside you can do the same, but it will carbon up soon anyway.

But the best tip is a long high heat burn for the grates.

Keep at it, the 1000 is a great cooker.
 
Thanks. I already have the cup brush but I'd like to get a bit more crud off of it before I start brushing. I was thinking steam power washer too, not sure where to find one. I really though the car wash would do the trick, but not so much.

I wouldn't mind a bit of crud, provided it is my own crud. I don't want to cook on someone else's crud. No idea what that crud consists of. I mean, what if this guy were a cannibal!

Maybe I'll fire up my cheapie gasser and see if I can burn the grates on it.
 
Keep at it T. I know it takes time, but it's totally worth it in the end.

Are you trying to get down to bare metal inside, and porcelain inside the lid?

For the inside of the lid on my project, I used a stainless steel scouring pad and dish soap and was able to scrub it all the way down to the porcelain. It took me a couple of hours to do, but here is the result:

001_1.jpg


Also, I did not end up going all the way down to bare metal inside the cookbox; I went down to stains, if that makes sense. Using oven cleaner and letting it soak overnight in a bag, it got down to where it was beginning to oxidize the aluminum a little bit, so at that point I cleaned the inside and outside as well as I could, painted the outside and then wanted to cook on it to season the aluminum and prevent further oxidation. As you can imagine, no problems there!

Finally, may we please see some pictures of your progress? People like pictures on here!

Keep at it, you have a fantastic grill that is worth saving! Every time I fire up the 3k I am reminded that these older grills were built to last, are better than the new generation in my opinion, and it's even better than having a brand new grill. It's a pride thing definitely, and totally worth it!!

Slainte!

Tim
 
THyde said:
Are you trying to get down to bare metal inside, and porcelain inside the lid?

001_1.jpg
Click to expand...

That right there! Although I don't have any progress pics (no real progress) here are a couple from when I cleaned my kettle after years of neglect. I had left it at my mom's house to cook on when we went there, and it took years of use and abuse from all manner of nieces, nephews, etc. Mom passed last year and I went and retrieved it, then did a refurb.

Anyway, this is the lid before and after the ammonia/oven cleaner treatment.

P1000215a.jpg
P1000216a.jpg


That's what I'm going for. The rest of your post describes my plan pretty much down to every detail.
 
"No idea what that crud consists of. I mean, what if this guy were a cannibal! "

That part cracked me up. I've thought the same thing before.
 
P1000215a.jpg


That's what I'm going for. The rest of your post describes my plan pretty much down to every detail.[/QUOTE]

The beer cozy in the back pretty much tells me you know what you're doing.

Keep up the good work, you'll get there!

Can't wait to see pictures of the 1000!

Tim
 
Stephen R said:
I take your point. He could have even been something worse.....like a vegetarian, yuck!
Click to expand...


OOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Or a VEGAN!

Wait, I thought we weren't supposed to cuss in here?

I did find a couple of before shots. The only pic of it all in one piece was on craigslist, and I don't have it.

P10002550.jpg

P1000253.jpg


You can see the ash pan is almost full to being level.

I just put the lid and grates back in the garbage bag with oven cleaner for round II.
 
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Well, the second round of oven cleaner did quite well. I think the lid is about 85-90%. It didn't do so well on the grates, but a quick trip to my gasser turned on high for about 5 minutes worked wonders.

Just for the heck of it I tried a propane torch on the grill chassis. Very interesting results, certainly no slower than scraping and lot easier.
 
You could try a razor blade on the lid. This is my main tool when restoring old kettles. I decided to go outside and grab one of my old gasser lids to see if the same method works. It does. I worked on it for less than a minute to show you the progress and how clean it can get, which is to the original porcelain.

I bet if I let it soak in water for a minute or two, it would come off easier.

And you don't have to deal with those chemicals.

20150723_173506.jpg


20150723_174032.jpg


20150723_174123.jpg
 
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I've done some scraping, it helped a little. Trust me when I say this particular crud is extraordinary!
 
So, finally some updates. The lid is done, and it looks pretty good! In the photo of the inside you can see a bunch of marks. Those are actually pits in the enamel, they are etched in from the years of abuse, and I suspect overheating the grill to try and burn stuff off. It's unfortunate, but the good news is they aren't through the paint.

P1000261.jpg


P1000262.jpg


As for the firebox, not so much. Yesterday I took the extreme step of pouring kerosene and charcoal lighter on it and setting on fire. When done there was no difference. A little came off the top, but that was it. So today I took the incredibly extreme step of using my angle grinder with a flapper wheel. It works, but not well. The thickness of this stuff is unbelievable. The other thing is that when I do succeed in getting some of it off, I'm finding pinholes and plenty of pockmarks in the casting. It's not in good shape, and to my mind isn't worth any more effort. I have begun the search for another grill to combine with this one.

The good news is I don't feel I got hurt. I paid him $40 for it and it came with a 20lb tank, a new unopened OEM igniter, some good grates and relatively new burners. There are plenty of good parts here too.

So, onward and upward!
 
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Getting typical of Weber not supporting their grills. They pulled this crap with my Summit. Quit making repair parts available even while it my Summit was still under Warranty. Just another reason I am getting VERY soured on them as a company. How would you like to take your under warranty car to the dealer and they tell you "sorry yes it's under warranty but no the factory will not can not supply the parts"!
 
That stinks, but in this case It's tough to be angry with them. The grill is almost 20 years old, not under warranty, and I'm not the original owner. I can understand how they'd stop making a part like a cast firebox once there were none left in warranty.

I don't think the vast majority of people would take the time to fix these things, they just toss them out and buy something new.
 
I'd fix a $2000 Summit. As it stands because of this I have a very expensive paper weight/anchor or I'll to find a fabricator that can make a new piece preferably from stainless (which at the price point of this thing it should have been in the first place.
 
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