My First Project! Webber summit 650


 
R

RichMN

New member
Hello everyone!

I am about to take on my first project. Any advice would be great! I picked up an awesome Weber Summit 650 off of craigslist for $120.00. It needs a really good scrubing, and some replacement parts, plus a nice new coat of paint. The cover and firebox seem to be in great shape. It is set up for natural gas, which I will convert to LP for the time being until I can get a service line out to my deck. I know that it will be at least a few years before that happens. The wife only approved this so far!

Thanks to these forums I have a great jump start. I know I will order my flavor bars from rcplanebuyer. Any one have ideas on who has the best burner sales? Its a 6 burner grill, the cheapest I have found was $77.00. Also I am looking for the best place to pick up orifices, and regulator. I found grill-repair.com, do you all recommend that site?


Thanks in advance. Attached are what the grill looks like prior to restoration. I already have the entire thing apart in my garage.

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james n said:
Rich welcome to the site, That's a real nice project to be working on.
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Thanks James! I am enjoying it so far. Plus its a great project while I am changing jobs and have 2 weeks off. I want to get as much of the hard work done prior to the installation of the burners and bars. Everything is sanded and ready to go for paint.

Question for all of you. Did you replace all the screws for the grill when taking apart the lid, and firebox? I see that I can pick them up for $30 bucks and that seems reasonable. Or do you go with screws from a big box store to get some more life? Or not replace them at all.

Thanks
 
Your flavorizer bars should be fine. They came with heavy SS bars and very heavy stainless steel grates. Really should be no reason to need them. Also do yourself a favor and run your gas line rather than trying to convert the grill. Orifices are near impossible to find because of an odd thread size. Look carefully at the front of the fire box where the burners poke through. For some weird reason it fails there just above the burner openings. So don't drop a lot of $$$$ on it as Weber no longer supports these models except for the burner tubes. Crossover tubes seem to be the failure points and are cheap right from Weber. Too bad Weber does not support them as they are fine cooking grills
 
Nice find! Check eBay for genuine weber burner tubes but beware some sellers list them as weber oem but are knock offs. I just bought 1 of those push button covers on the igniter switch for 5$ plus shipping from weber. I see 1 of yours is broken. Most of that grill should clean up nice with 0000 wool on hood and some oven cleaner and elbow grease in fire box. I just rehabbed an 1998 genesis myself. Good luck!
 
Your fire box is showing the same failure mine did. Sad. But you can see the enamel bubbling over the burner openings. Have fun with it anyway just don't drop too much $$$ on it
 
LMichaels said:
Your fire box is showing the same failure mine did. Sad. But you can see the enamel bubbling over the burner openings. Have fun with it anyway just don't drop too much $$$ on it
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Where do you see the bubbling? Maybe the picture showed something thats not there. The middle burner looks like someone cut it a little bit to fit a burner in there. But the other 5 are in great shape.
 
It looks pretty clear in the photo that the enamel has failed or is failing on 2 or 3 of the holes the burners go through. Look at what would be the front portion of the fire box, there are 6 openings the burner(s) pass through. Look at the top of those you'll see what I'm seeing. I don't think it's a flaw in the photo. Looks pretty clear the porcelain has begun to fail. Once at this stage it goes rapidly. I am going to try some rust converter on mine (or may try having a new piece made out of stainless). Though someone on here said they might part out a 450 and asked if I am interested in the piece. Which if the porcelain has not failed it could be well worth it to me. Best of luck on it
 
LMichaels said:
It looks pretty clear in the photo that the enamel has failed or is failing on 2 or 3 of the holes the burners go through. Look at what would be the front portion of the fire box, there are 6 openings the burner(s) pass through. Look at the top of those you'll see what I'm seeing. I don't think it's a flaw in the photo. Looks pretty clear the porcelain has begun to fail. Once at this stage it goes rapidly. I am going to try some rust converter on mine (or may try having a new piece made out of stainless). Though someone on here said they might part out a 450 and asked if I am interested in the piece. Which if the porcelain has not failed it could be well worth it to me. Best of luck on it
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Yep yep. Not too bad right now, but definitely starting to go.

summit450.jpg





On one hand, it's taken close to 20 years for the front to get to this point. On the other hand, have no idea how quickly the problem can/will accelerate.


LM, I think I've decided to go with Ospho to treat mine as I'm not sure about the protective layer that POR15 puts down. It's that whole "nothing inside the firebox that can cause fumes" thing. The Oshpo supposedly rinses off after the chemical process is completed.
 
Depending on how much you use it the failure happens very quickly from this point. Mine went from that to near total failure of that panel in about a year
 
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