Jon Tofte
TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Since my wife has now noticed my crazy Sunbeam acquisition
, I decided to give in to my curiosity and start doing SOMETHING with it! Either get it fixed up or scrap it, but DON'T leave it in the backyard to continue to gather rust and questions.
This is a VERY SMALL grill. When you start disassembling it you get that much more respect for Weber. The parts on this thing are pretty flimsy. The central post houses the simple manifold and igniter. The box like structure is made of some kind of galvanized metal and so had little rust. BUT, it is spot riveted together with no provision to open up! I don't know if they figured when these things failed the grill would be headed for the junk yard or whether they really felt you could just reach in to access these parts.
Good luck getting a wrench in there...With a lot of finagling I finally got the old igniter nut to loosen and was able to remove with my hand. The manifold was easier as the screw that holds it in was on the outside. I found it in pretty good shape and just cleaned it up.
The rest of the grill is pretty much a wreck:
Ahh, but that is what makes what we do fun! I managed to get it all apart, having to cut off a couple hopelessly frozen screws that held the fire box to the post. I had to park working on the cast aluminum box and lid for another day due to rain and other commitments. I decided to concentrate on assessing whether the burner could be replaced with a leftover Broilmaster "bow-tie" burner I still have. It isn't new, but it wire brushed halfway decently and the flame holes look clean. The "venturis" on the Sunbeam go straight down to the manifold, unlike the Broilmaster ones which have the more common 90 degree bend.
I was happily surprised to find that I could remove the venturi tubes from the pretty much shot Sunbeam burner (stainless but 430 and very thin and old) and install them on the Broilmaster burner. I will still need to come up with something to support the Broilmaster burner inside the firebox since the supports on it were part of the venturi assembly I removed. I am thinking just a couple steel corner brackets set sideways underneath just to give it something to rest on.
I mentioned how thin and cheap the parts are compared to Weber. This is true of the logo. It is metal, at least, and attaches to the hood just like Weber does. It is much thinner, though.
I plan to start out by painting black and then doing the sand off to reveal the lower part that says "Grillmaster" and has an outline. For the SUNBEAM word logo itself, I am thinking about leaving the high heat black paint on it and then painting over with regular gold paint which is what I kind of remember Sunbeam's logo being and what it actually apppears to have been. I will then overlay with some clear brake caliper paint. I am hoping by "sandwiching" the regular paint between high heat stuff that it will last at least a little while.
I will post some more pictures and updates as I find time to get somewhere on this crazy project.
, I decided to give in to my curiosity and start doing SOMETHING with it! Either get it fixed up or scrap it, but DON'T leave it in the backyard to continue to gather rust and questions.
This is a VERY SMALL grill. When you start disassembling it you get that much more respect for Weber. The parts on this thing are pretty flimsy. The central post houses the simple manifold and igniter. The box like structure is made of some kind of galvanized metal and so had little rust. BUT, it is spot riveted together with no provision to open up! I don't know if they figured when these things failed the grill would be headed for the junk yard or whether they really felt you could just reach in to access these parts.
Good luck getting a wrench in there...With a lot of finagling I finally got the old igniter nut to loosen and was able to remove with my hand. The manifold was easier as the screw that holds it in was on the outside. I found it in pretty good shape and just cleaned it up.
The rest of the grill is pretty much a wreck:
Ahh, but that is what makes what we do fun
! I managed to get it all apart, having to cut off a couple hopelessly frozen screws that held the fire box to the post. I had to park working on the cast aluminum box and lid for another day due to rain and other commitments. I decided to concentrate on assessing whether the burner could be replaced with a leftover Broilmaster "bow-tie" burner I still have. It isn't new, but it wire brushed halfway decently and the flame holes look clean. The "venturis" on the Sunbeam go straight down to the manifold, unlike the Broilmaster ones which have the more common 90 degree bend.I was happily surprised to find that I could remove the venturi tubes from the pretty much shot Sunbeam burner (stainless but 430 and very thin and old) and install them on the Broilmaster burner. I will still need to come up with something to support the Broilmaster burner inside the firebox since the supports on it were part of the venturi assembly I removed. I am thinking just a couple steel corner brackets set sideways underneath just to give it something to rest on.
I mentioned how thin and cheap the parts are compared to Weber. This is true of the logo. It is metal, at least, and attaches to the hood just like Weber does. It is much thinner, though.
I plan to start out by painting black and then doing the sand off to reveal the lower part that says "Grillmaster" and has an outline. For the SUNBEAM word logo itself, I am thinking about leaving the high heat black paint on it and then painting over with regular gold paint which is what I kind of remember Sunbeam's logo being and what it actually apppears to have been. I will then overlay with some clear brake caliper paint. I am hoping by "sandwiching" the regular paint between high heat stuff that it will last at least a little while.
I will post some more pictures and updates as I find time to get somewhere on this crazy project.
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