1981 18.5 and parts

[Chris-P]

I just picked this up at a friend’s garage sale for 35. I was wanting something smaller than the 22 I have now. It has some rust but has been kept in a garage/shed over the years so it isn’t too awful. I’m going to give it a good cleaning and replace the hardware which is rusting. I’m assuming it’ll be easy to get the correct size replacement grates. Any other cleanup tips?

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

Nice score! Clean it up, maybe replace the door but, I’d more likely just hit it with a wire brush and paint it.

 

[Chris Allingham]

If you've confirmed it's a 1981, ("C" stamped into the vent damper) it's a first year WSM. The door and legs are steel, not aluminum, thus the rust. You can update both door and legs, if you wish, but please keep those parts with the cooker so you can pass them along to the next owner if you ever decide to part with it. Or you can attempt to clean-up and keep those original parts on the cooker, but I wouldn't paint them as it would ruin their originality.

The tabs on the vent dampers appear to be bent. If you try to bend them back to perpendicular, you risk changing the overall shape and tight fit of the damper. Do so at your own risk.

Clean the outside with soapy water and a scrub brush. Baked-on grease/smoke can be removed with super fine 0000 steel wool and Simple Green or 409, then rinse. The black finish is porcelain enamel, not paint, so super fine 0000 steel wool won't scratch it. Don't use ScotchBrite green pads, they can create fine scratches. Inside, you can wash it out with soapy water and rinse. There's really no need to take it back to original finish inside. If there's peeling inside, it's just grease/smoke buildup that's coming off, not the porcelain coating. Use a stiff bristle brush to remove what you can, sometimes just a brush and water will remove a lot of it. It will just build up again as you cook in the future.

I wouldn't do anything to the original wooden handle, as long as it's not cracked.

The top cooking grate is not special, it's the same grate that goes into any 18.5" Weber kettle grill and you can usually find it at any hardware store. The lower grate is 1/2" smaller and pricier and must be ordered. You can get it on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B013KIGPZC/tvwb-20

or from other online parts retailers or from Weber at 800-446-1071.

If you decide to order a door and legs from Weber, you might as well order the lower cooking grate, too...you'll get flat rate shipping.

Good find! Good luck!

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

There is the best information you will get! That’s why you started this site isn’t it Chris? Happy 20 years!

 

[Chris-P]

Chris- That is EXACTLY the info I was looking for! Thank you! I’ve already taken to cleaning the door and have started on the legs. It is a “C” stamp on the vents. I’m very excited to get this thing cleaned up. I’ll post some pics up a little later. When I brought it home I started to doubt it was a Weber, primarily due to rust on the door and legs. I had to use a Dremel cutting wheel to cut the nuts off on the inside (ouch!) to get the legs off.

 

[Chris Allingham]

Chris, I’d like to use your photos in a short video on how to cleanup these old WSMs. Ok with you?

 

[Chris-P]

Chris, I’d like to use your photos in a short video on how to cleanup these old WSMs. Ok with you?

Absolutely! I’ll take them as I go and link them to imgur for download.

 

[Chris Allingham]

Or you can upload them direct to the forum. Thanks!

 

[Chris-P]

Or you can upload them direct to the forum. Thanks!

Excellent, that's easier.

 

[Chris Allingham]

Just drop you photos one at a time on the text box where type your post, or use the Photo icon to navigate and select pics.

 

[Chris-P]

Well, so far so good!

I've been using the following items for cleaning: Palmolive, Simple Green PRO HD (I realized I had some when searching for my Dremel), cotton rags, super fine steel wool, a couple of nylon brushes and an old tire cleaning brush.





Started with the mid-section, I used a combo of the Palmolive first then tried the Simple Green. I think the Simple Green does a better job. I didn't go too crazy on the inside, I just gave it a scrub down because honestly, I plan on using it. It wasn't too terribly crusty, so a once over was all it needed.










And the cleaning:






This next pic was after the steel wool, it took the gunk off nicely, you can really tell around the door opening compared to the pic above.



More to come..

 

[Chris-P]

The water pan was pretty yucked up. Ran it through the Simple Green wash and scrub with the hard bristle brush. The steel wool did a great job getting most of the stuff off. There are some spots that I put a lot of scrubbing and steel wooling into and it became pretty exhausting.

Before cleaning:




After the washing and brush scrubbing, the bottom required steel wool, the inside of the pan was great:






Steel wool works excellent. No scratches, but I realized that the little flecks of steel stick to the cell phone. Trying to take a picture the lens was all blurry. Realized it had collected around the lens.

 

[Chris-P]

Now the fun part, the lid! This was in pretty good shape all around. The vents on top were bent in, but I'll show how I bent them back to perpendicular later.

Removal of the wood handle. I was able to find someone on eBay that has a bunch of non-original wood handles for sale. I'll save the old one. it's still functional, but I really want one that says "Weber".

 

[Chris-P]

Washing:




Coming together nicely!! A little sad that it isn't the deep black, but after almost 40 years, there was bound to be some fading. At least the outside is smooth. The steel wool does a great job on smoothing it out.

 

[Chris-P]

Now for the bowl. This part has taken a bit more effort.

1) The legs. Aside from them being rusted, the nuts on the inside were rusted and frozen in place to the point of having to take a Dremel cutting wheel to them. Two of them were so bad that the nut was rounded and smaller than its original size. Thankfully, I didn't do any damage removing them. So that left me with no hardware for the legs. I took a trip to Ace and realized they do not have slotted screws similar to what Weber gives you. I stood there staring for quite awhile before just deciding on some regular stainless hex bolts, nuts and washers for the legs. I contacted Weber today as well. They do not sell the hardware separately. I can get new legs, which have the hardware, but I think for now, I'll just hold off and use what I purchased from Ace. Ebay may end up being my go-to for these original parts eventually.

2) One of the places where one of the legs attach has a very rusted area and a small hole. Nothing to cry over really, but I realize that I'll need to keep this stored indoors if I want to slow the rust.

3) Sizeable rust spots on the bottom (two on outside, one on inside). They looked worse before cleanup. There was a bit of a bulge and it made me think that there may be rust under the paint. The paint seems solid and the pushing on the rust, it doesn't feel like my finger is going to go through anything. I thought maybe I should sand down the rust and then order some Weber black touch up paint. When I spoke to Weber, the person I spoke to said it cost $24 for the paint and he did not have information on the size it comes in. He suggested that I go to Home Depot for some high heat paint (which I have, Rustoleum flat black but not sure if should do this). If anyone has guidance to give on this, I'd love to hear it!



I hate it when people include their feet in a picture.


Anyway, below is the inside and you can see the rust spot.





Here is the bottom. Looks a lot like the moon. Again, not sure whether to sand off just the rust spots and Rustoleum them or just leave as is.





Here is the bad spot where one of the legs attach. One, maybe two tiny holes.




Decided on oven cleaner for the inside of the bowl. Only left it on for about 5 minutes. I wanted a better view of the rust.





More bottom pics, still prior to cleaning:

 

[Chris-P]

Bowl still in process.

No pics of the scrubbing, which was minimal. The outside almost looked the same as it did prior to the cleaning.



Almost all of the vent handles were bent in some way.

After the cleaning, I started to work on CAREFULLY bending them back into place with a strip of cedar wood, a hammer, and used the end of a grill scraper to pry them up.

Here is where I used the scraper to bend this one back up enough to slighly rap it with the wood and a hammer until it was close to perpendicular.





Looking better after some steel wool and a bit of scrubbing.

 

[Chris-P]

Still the bowl......sick of it, but the steel wool did make the outside look a LOT better! A lot of that rust streaked/grease, whatever it was came off fairly easy for the most part.

Inside after the oven cleaner soak and rinse.






After scrubbing the vents, rust, streaks, and rust spots. Some of those stains are just baked in.

 

[Chris-P]

Bending of the lid vent turned out well too, but that little black spot on the vent is being stubborn to remove:




Here is the work on the legs to remove the rust. I used an electric drill and wire brush drill attachment. After a half hour before that with some steel wool, I couldn't stand it any longer, had to use the wire brush. It worked really well on the outside, but had to use a sanding drum on a Dremel on the inside part. Some of the rust worked it's way into the metal legs pretty deep. Some pretty bad pits but no holes yet! Also tried a little CLR but that did nothing.

 

[Chris-P]

Here are the legs as of tonight. I have one left to do. I also did the same to the door (the pic on the door was taken when the rest of the unit was dirty). Removed the handle and just used the wire brush drill bit on the door and steel wool.

I used some Novus plastic polish in hopes that I could shine up the original door knob, but no dice on that working. Once I get the legs on in the next night or two, I'll post up some final pics. I'm going to have to get a few new grates and have requested a cover for it for Father's Day.

 

[Jeff Boudman]

Weber sent me the wrong legs for an 18.5. I‘be been cobbling together. I didn’t realize it until I went to put the heat shield on the smoker. I received an order confirmation Saturday but have not received a shipping notification. You can have the legs and hardware after I swap them out.