A little bit of progress on my Genesis Skyline "Chicago" Grill


 
Bruce said:
Jon, you can make money rehabbing Weber grills, but even a republican would say you need a raise. It is all about finding the right candidate at the right price (or free for curbside pickup), sourcing the replacement parts and supplies and then a whole lot of messy work. But, with you being a financial guy, it is pretty evident that a job at McDonalds is going to net you a whole lot more profit in the end.

If you factor in the satisfaction of bringing back a great grill to life, it is almost worth it, but it still doesn't buy you much more than hamburger, fries and a coke. :)
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Ha:rolleyes:;):D! I guess I will stick with taxes for my income and grill restoration for my fun and sanity preservation.
 
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Eastwood Products

I checked out the two Eastwood products recommended by Larry and Bruce. I decided to order the frame interior spray that comes with the extension hose. Looks like it would be a really good extra step to insure the long term survival of older Weber frame parts, especially in a coastal salt air environment. I ordered it with slow boat to China shipping because I am not too sure when I can make enough time free of income taxes to use it properly. It does look like this would be the next step before a final paint of the outside pieces. Some of the reviews mentioned that the spray will find ways to come out of every available bolt hole opening thus requiring some clean-up. The reviewers still strongly recommended it nonetheless.
 
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Nah, dont over think it. If your frame doesn't hold up, find a donor grill down the road and redo that one. Unless you know yours is compromised and won't last, then don't fix it if it ain't broke. I know mine isn't 100%. The area where the cook box bolt goes through the frame was rusted pretty bad. The inside of the frame was definitely in bad shape, I just cleaned it up, sprayed a little rust preventer inside the area and outside and then repainted the whole thing. It is holding up well. I do keep my grill in the garage however. I figure if it gets worse, I will just find a donor grill with a decent frame. I do have a Silver C with a definite issue in that same area. The inside of the frame against the cook box is basically gone in the size of a quarter, maybe a little more. When I get to rehabbing that, I think I will cut out the whole cross bar and replace it with one off of a donor grill. I think I have a couple of the bottom cross members that attach with bolts instead of being welded like the top ones. I figure I can cut the old one out, drill holes through the outside of the frame and put bolts into the donor cross member. The Silver C frames are not as easy to come by as the Silver B's. But, I don't plan on doing a complete inside rust proofing or anything like that.
 
I have a 3000 that I've converted into a 2000. The frame is long to support the side burner, which is now an extra side table that I use constantly. It might be a good idea to rustproof the interior of the frame (there's surprisingly hardly any rust outside, and where there is it's only surface rust) to kind of immortalize the grill. Also, with two sets of burners and flavorizers, really there's nothing but cleaning and maintenance for a good long while.

I can see that Jon is going for that kind of immortality with the Skyline, and I like the thinking!
 
One more tiny step, but a cool one!

Well, my “Chicago” Genesis Skyline project has been pretty stalled:mad:, but I have found a little time to do something. See my separate post about the Genesis frames where I picked up a great deal on a Genesis Silver C. I plan to use the side burner, knobs and maybe the entire frame from this find to incorporate into my Skyline.

I also had time to finish painting the condiment holder, a unique Skyline Series feature. I wanted to personalize my grill, so I added a Chicago White Sox belt buckle that includes a Chicago skyline as a decorative item:

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I really will get this grill completed. Tax Season is in the way right now, but stay tuned!
 
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I like that condiment holder. Glad it was still with your grill when you got it. Stuff like that tends to get lost over the years. The belt buckle is kind a cool mod.
 
Bruce said:
I like that condiment holder. Glad it was still with your grill when you got it. Stuff like that tends to get lost over the years. The belt buckle is kind a cool mod.
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Bruce,

Besides meeting my wife there, my favorite memories of Chicago are some great times spent at old Comiskey Park. Not being a Chicago native, I didn’t have the love the Sox/hate the Cubs angst. So, I enjoyed some good times at Wrigley Field, too, including singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game with Harry Carey leading. Still, I usually go for the underdog, so I adopted the White Sox as my team.

In October 2005, we were recovering from a hurricane with no electricity, so my sons and I listened on a radio as the Sox won their first World Series in eighty-something years:cool:! It felt like we were in the 1940s!

With their gothic logo and the skyline on the belt buckle, I figured this would be one fun way to make my grill a little more unique;)!

Jon
 
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Jon Tofte said:
Bruce,

Besides meeting my wife there, my favorite memories of Chicago are some great times spent at old Comiskey Park. Not being a Chicago native, I didn’t have the love the Sox/hate the Cubs angst. So, I enjoyed some good times at Wrigley Field, too, including singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game with Harry Carey leading. Still, I usually go for the underdog, so I adopted the White Sox as my team.

In October 2005, we were recovering from a hurricane with no electricity, so my sons and I listened on a radio as the Sox won their first World Series in eighty-something years:cool:! It felt like we were in the 1940s!

With their gothic logo and the skyline on the belt buckle, I figured this would be one fun way to make my grill a little more unique;)!

Jon
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Grew up in the 'burbs of Chicago and spent many a weekend being a bleacher bum at Wrigley and Comiskey park too, if the Cubs were on the road. Great times were had at both fields. Although Wrigley had the better hot dogs.:cool:
 
Grew up NW side. Used to ride our bikes to the red line (I think it was called the Howard St El at the time). Tie up our bikes get a $.25 fare with transfer so round trip was $.25 IIRC watch a game SRO tickets but because Wrigley was empty we'd go sit in the good seats and ride el back to our bikes
 
LMichaels said:
Grew up NW side. Used to ride our bikes to the red line (I think it was called the Howard St El at the time). Tie up our bikes get a $.25 fare with transfer so round trip was $.25 IIRC watch a game SRO tickets but because Wrigley was empty we'd go sit in the good seats and ride el back to our bikes
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Larry,

I was fortunate enough to be a grad student in Chicago 83-85 when you could still at least go to a Cubs game without having to rob a bank. One time I was able to pick up golden box seats for a gorgeous early afternoon day with Rick Sutcliffe on the mound. In 1987, I was there for my wedding, and my wife to be decided that I wasn't all that helpful on the wedding arrangements. She told me to find something to do for the day. No problem. Rare day when the Cubs and Sox were BOTH at home, so I went to an afternoon game at Wrigley where, while waiting in line, a kindly older black gentleman told me I didn't need to buy a ticket because he would just give me one. I was a little dubious, but took him up on the generous offer and found myself sitting next to him in the box seat section! When I said to him, "You must know somebody!" he smiled and said that he had played in the Negro Leagues. We had a great afternoon, and then I headed south on the El switching hats at Madison Street and found myself at Comiskey for a night game. It was half-price ticket night;)! That was an awesome baseball day, to be sure!

My cousin in-law - a Chicago native and Cubs fan who somehow lives in the SW suburbs - tells me that you either get very lucky or content yourself with seeing the Cubs at "Wrigley North" in Milwaukee:mad:. Of course, the underdog southsider Sox seldom fill their park (whatever it is now called), so you can always see a game there (except when they play the Cubs!).
 
Rich Dahl said:
Grew up in the 'burbs of Chicago and spent many a weekend being a bleacher bum at Wrigley and Comiskey park too, if the Cubs were on the road. Great times were had at both fields. Although Wrigley had the better hot dogs.:cool:
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Hey Rich,
Good to have you post on my thread. I will give you the hot dogs, but you have to admit that they figured out more ways to squeeze every imaginable ethnic food into any available nook and cranny of old Comiskey Park. I used to always say "This place SMELLS like baseball!" (Probably it was mostly stale beer and ground up peanuts that had permanently adhered to the old concrete;).)

One time in 84 or 85 I was at Comiskey in one of the labyrinths with food vendors and, I kid you not, Ozzie Guillen - in uniform - came walking out carrying a stack of styrofoam cups! He was only a rookie that year, but I still never quite figured that one out. The funniest thing was listening to some giddy Hispanic kids crowding around him and asking him if he knew Julio Cruz, another Sox player at that time:rolleyes:!

Although the Sox were my favorite, I did go to Wrigley quite a few times and even enjoyed a day in the bleachers when the wind was blowing out. Even the Dodgers' pitcher hit a home run! Those were the days. I was a sad guy walking past old Comiskey being torn down. I did manage to reach through the fence and pull out a white-washed fragment of the outer wall of the old place. It still occupies a special shadow box with old tickets, pictures and couple of baseball cards from when I was in love with baseball.
 
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Bruce said:
Today, those bikes would be gone when you got back.
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Yeah you got that right. But it was the early 60's (Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins and all the greats) were still playing. It was a different time not the awful world we live in now. We got enough money turning in bottles for deposit for El fare and SRO tickets. A simple chain and pad lock was all we needed to lock up the bikes.
I never did the Cubs in AM and Sox at night thing. That would put us home past dinner time and Italian moms didn't like that LOL. 85 wife and I got married late in the year. We lived by North Park University (wife's alma mater for college) me, I went to school of hard knocks no college. I was too busy sweating whether I was gonna get drafted and have my a$$ shipped to Nam. Or end up in Canada (where my dad had already told me he had the money and everything necessary for me to go) rather than getting shot to bits in some stupid war. (he hated LBJ and Nixon for how they extended and amp'd it up for their personal gains) especially when a whole group of the guys I knew from the hood (who worked it out to enlist together and stay together) got "ambushed" there and not one of them came back. Well they came back but in bags. Thankfully I never had to do either (drafted or go to Canada). But the stress levels I lived with have not been matched to this day. I'm 6'2" and my weight had dropped to 125lbs! No matter how much I ate. Stress was that bad!
Wife and I stayed in Chicago until just before oldest girl was born in 1988. Moved to Woodstock IL and later further out to a little area outside of Rockford IL. Still here but now fear I will be taxed out of my house. Currently tax bill is more than mortgage (gotta love IL....................not).
We used to catch the bus right outside our house ride it down to Ravenswood area and simply walk the rest of the way down Clark St to the field. I did like living in the city. We just could not afford it is all.
 
Jon Tofte said:
I am in denial about tax season (although I have already started on it). It was a pretty day today and I decided I wanted to at least get SOMETHING done on my pet dream: a Weber Genesis Skyline with some of my own modifications to make it my "Chicago" grill. I went to grad school and worked for a year in Chicago and met my wife there as well. So, although I am pretty much a Floridian at heart, I do have a special tie to the Windy City.

In case some of you may be wondering, Weber sold a limited line of Genesis grills through Sears that featured a black hood with a white graphic of the Chicago skyline. They called them the Skyline Series. The white graphic is actually part of the porcelain, so it holds up pretty well. The black hoods are prone to fading. I obtained my hood from a guy in NJ who was nice enough to disassemble his Skyline that he was selling on Craigslist and ship it and some of the other important parts to me here in FL. I was VERY happy to get this hood, which though having some fade is still in nice condition. I think these are unique and very cool:



I have made a custom painted Weber logo for it and have been saving a vintage Weber "Grill Out" handle/light that I think will look perfect on this grill:

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Thanks for posting a picture of the Grill Out Handle Light.

What Grill Out Handle Lights are compatible with the Skyline? Is it only the 9057, or will the 7516 also work?

Any tips or issues with installation of the 9057 handle light?
 
Arun,
From what I understand the 9057 Grill Out Handle Light is the only one Weber made that is compatible with the original Weber Genesis hoods. They haven’t made them in a very long time, but you can usually find them on eBay or perhaps something similar. There are non-Weber products that can be attached to almost any handle. Search Amazon and you will see plenty.

The 9057 is fairly simple to install, but you do have to remove the original handle. This means at least partially disassembling your hood. Not a big deal, of course. This handle requires six ‘C’ batteries to fire its old-fashion bulbs. I don’t think it would look good on every grill, but it was perfect for my Skyline urban Chicago look. One nice thing is that it puts more space between your hand and the hot hood when opening.
 
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Perhaps some of the newer style grill lights that magnetically attach to the side tables and look like little flood/spot lights would be just the ticket. I have been thinking about getting one or more for my own application
 
I have one of these styles of grill lights: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B06XJBQZZC/tvwb-20

They clamp onto the handle and when they can be positioned so that when the lid is open, they illuminate directly down on the cooking grates.

Mine is not that exact light, but the same. I think one factory in china makes them all and there are dozens of outfits that rebrand and resell them. I tried one of those magnetic gooseneck lights but they suk in my opinion. THey don't put the light at the right angle and they always seem to be in the way.
 
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