Gas to charcoal conversion

Not sure where the best place is to post this so i'll start here

Over the past year or so i've been thinking of buying a charcoal bbq....rectangular, like my old Genesis, i already have a 22" Kettle.

The problem is i can't seem to find one. I looked at the Yoder Grill 24x48, i hate the lid set up...the rest of it is golden

Note: I don't want an offset smoker or a pellet smoker....i just want a 24x48 +/- charcoal grill built like a tank

Soooo I was thinking of taking 2 old Genesis gas grills and sticking them together to build one large grill. I realize there would need to be some cutting and welding (of aluminum) but wanted to see if anyone out there has done any butchering of old webers like this?

thanks

The odds are though you may have trouble welding that old aluminum as over the years those castings get REALLY brittle from all the heat/cool cycles. I could see doing it from a single unit though. You would want to close off the grease funnel though as you would not want burning charcoal bits falling into that catch pan or worse dropping out on the deck. Another issue is heat control. You need air shutters to be able to control the air flow and temp of the burning charcoal. Overall not truly practical

Kevin,

Depends of course on how much you want to spend. A couple options occur to me: PK Grills and Broilmaster both make rectangular charcoal grills that are DESIGNED to be charcoal grills:

https://www.pkgrills.com/grills/

http://broilmaster.com/products/charcoal-grills/

The PK grill - at least the original version - may be homely but they are highly rated. The Broilmaster is expensive, but if you are really lucky you might find a used one for sale for a whole lot less. Both are rectangular and cast aluminum. They were build to be charcoal grills avoiding the pitfalls of a conversion of parts not originally designed for that.