2014 Weber Summit 470 Restore


 
Joe Anshien

Joe Anshien

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I have not found any grills to flip in a while and this came up on FBM. I probably should have listened to conventional advice and skipped it, but for $100 with a fairly intact bottom and a new fire box under warranty, I figured I would give it a shot. I can't believe these grills retail for $2700 new these days. For that much money there are definitely better made grills out there. These things are so much harder to restore than Genesis's. I had to cut the lid off the firebox as one of the clevis pins was frozen and would not come out with PB blaster, torch, and hammer. Then you have the wires and gas line going around the fire box for the roti burner. Just getting the burner tubes out took forever as the front panel has to come off. I really like the burners on the Genesis IIs the way the just pop out. I'll post more pics as I get it back together. There is a great YouTube video I have been following on replacing the firebox here.
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The fact that you're getting a new cookbox under warranty makes fixing that grill up worth it in my book. I can't wait to see it finished. Are you going to keep it? I think I would 🤔
 
Amazing steal!! I’m jealous of the deal itself.
Is there anything different about the frame on that as compared to a Genesis from the same period?
 
Joe,
Looks like you have bitten off quite a lot, but I also know you are resourceful and will find a way. Good thing on that firebox, because the original one would take a sheet metal shop full of reinforcement panels!

Look forward to seeing how it comes out.
 
Steve Hoch said:
The fact that you're getting a new cookbox under warranty makes fixing that grill up worth it in my book. I can't wait to see it finished. Are you going to keep it? I think I would 🤔
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I did give some thought to keeping it. But compared to the Napoleon Prestige 500 RSIB I restored, this grill really does not stack up.

Napoleon and Summit have a similar feature set but:
The Napoleon has a cast aluminum firebox, IR side burner, heavy duty cross over ignition
The Weber has built in smoker box, extra "sear burner", lit knobs, electronic tank scale, heavy duty SS drip tray, and the flip up rotisserie.

These grills were definitely meant to compete against each other. If Weber ever updates this grill with an Aluminum fire box, cross overs, and IR side burner it would be a fantastic grill. I don't think Weber has updated this grill (except for the price) in about 10 years.
 
Yah, Weber must see a big savings in the current fire box design over the full cast aluminum version. Otherwise, I would think they would have made that change by now. They have had the same design for a long enough time now to realize it just isn't up the standards of a $3,000 grill.
 
I spent most of this year trying to do the same thing to my S-670. I also had the lid pin problem you describe, so got a new firebox and lid. I finally gave up after I was in position to have to start buying a new infrared burner, new gas manifold and other pricey parts but couldn’t get my hands on a new cabinet - mine is worst than yours. Now I have a new firebox, new lid, new burners and new flavorizer bars to sell.
 
I suppose if you are fortunate to live in a very dry area and give your 3rd generation Summit the best of care, you can at least enjoy cooking on a "starship" size grill. When it is all working, I would think it cooks very well, and it is set up for decent rotisserie. For me, it is just too bloated for the grill space you get. There is no excuse for the cheap cabinetry on a grill this pricey, and like Bruce says, by now they surely should know that the porcelain coated steel in the firebox is going to fail. If they needed to charge $500 more, than fine, but make it to last.
 
Jon Tofte said:
I suppose if you are fortunate to live in a very dry area and give your 3rd generation Summit the best of care, you can at least enjoy cooking on a "starship" size grill. When it is all working, I would think it cooks very well, and it is set up for decent rotisserie. For me, it is just too bloated for the grill space you get. There is no excuse for the cheap cabinetry on a grill this pricey, and like Bruce says, by now they surely should know that the porcelain coated steel in the firebox is going to fail. If they needed to charge $500 more, than fine, but make it to last.
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I frankly think just whether it sits in the sun and can quickly dry out is as big a factor as anything. Mine has lived at two houses and neither was a full-sun location. This grill was wetter than it wanted to be for long stretches of time even while covered due to snow/rain/dew and not getting sun for many hours of the mornings.

And yes, Weber had no problem giving me a firebox, but wanted lots of discussion and photos before providing the lid. Seemingly wouldn’t budge on providing a new infrared burner or any kind of discount on the base. The infrared burner was simply unable to be removed from the old lid without damage and ditto for several fasteners into the base. Basically wasted quite a few hours on that project.

Heck, I didn’t even want to use the infrared, but it’s a pretty big hole without the burner in there. ;-)
 
To be fair, if you’re going to sell it you can just give it a degreasing, exterior clean up, and sell it for $200 (or more) ezpz with the new firebox. Instant profit.
 
John-NY said:
To be fair, if you’re going to sell it you can just give it a degreasing, exterior clean up, and sell it for $200 (or more) ezpz with the new firebox. Instant profit.
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Trust me, I wish I would have left it intact. Easily could have sold it for a few bucks. It’s now COMPLETELY disassembled in my garage. My wife was like “give it to the future son-in-law” and I told here I really don’t want to pass along this headache to anyone. It’s not worth their effort. If I can sell the parts, great. If now - maybe I’ll turn it into a planter or spiffy drink cooler.
 
That's really not bad. If my Summit had the sear burner, I might have kept it, fixed the rotten firebox and added the little RCPlaneBuyer grate to reclaim the wasted smoker box space.

Pro tip: The stainless on the Summit cleans up much nicer than that of my Genesis II. Magic Eraser worked wonders and Barkeepers' Friend and ScotchBrite pad for lightly retouching the brushed finish where it had deeper scratches. I actually gave mine a light polish with Flitz or Brasso (can't recall) and it looked so good I had to replace the crusty knobs to complete the look.

I intended to keep mine, but a G2-435 caught my eye. The guy who bought it had a 670 at home and made my 450 his lake house "beater" grill. I called him 2 minutes out to say he left the $100 cover. He didn't bother to turn around, said he doesn't cover his grills. These things flood the grease pan without covers, so it made me a little sad for the effort I put into it.
 
Mack - I feel your pain. I got the lid off by cutting the firebox through the pin with an angle grinder then Sawzall. I got the rotisserie burner out by cutting new slots in the screw head in the fire box. Then I actually came back and searched the forum on my post how to disable the thermocoupler (it is in my restoring a Genesis 5 thread), to get the rotisserie burner working again. Firebox is back in and rotisserie burner is now working great. I am waiting on Weber to get me new burner tubes as they seem to have no stock. In the mean time I cleaned up a few of the old ones to put in and test. If anyone has an idea on how to remove what looks like mold from the 4 large knobs I would love to hear it. I tried soaking in bleach and even light sanding did not seem to work. The old flavorizers are in good shape but rusty. I tried the wire wheel on the grinder and it only helped a little. I may try electrolysis next.
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Joe Anshien said:
Bill what was wrong with your IR burner and manifold?
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The gas function of the manifold itself wasn’t all that bad but since I had all brand new burner tubes and wanted to have operable igniters and fresh dials, replacing the manifold entirely was my only option.

The infrared burner itself was completely rusted into the lid and to get it out the studs on the burner would have to be cut/broken. This would allow no way to re-mount the burner into the new lid.
 
Joe Anshien said:
Mack - I feel your pain. I got the lid off by cutting the firebox through the pin with an angle grinder then Sawzall. I got the rotisserie burner out by cutting new slots in the screw head in the fire box. Then I actually came back and searched the forum on my post how to disable the thermocoupler (it is in my restoring a Genesis 5 thread), to get the rotisserie burner working again. Firebox is back in and rotisserie burner is now working great. I am waiting on Weber to get me new burner tubes as they seem to have no stock. In the mean time I cleaned up a few of the old ones to put in and test. If anyone has an idea on how to remove what looks like mold from the 4 large knobs I would love to hear it. I tried soaking in bleach and even light sanding did not seem to work. The old flavorizers are in good shape but rusty. I tried the wire wheel on the grinder and it only helped a little. I may try electrolysis next.
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Try soaking them in a sealed container of hydrogen peroxide for 4 or 5 days
 
Got some more done last night. Starting to look like a grill. I may be sitting on this partly put together for a while as Weber has no ETA to ship the new burners.
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