Another Charity Project: Restoring a Genesis S-310 2013-15

[Jon Tofte]

Hi everyone! I am finally finding a little time to start a restoration project. A few months ago, I picked up this sad looking Genesis S-310 for $75 on Craigslist. It is no more than 4 years old, but the original owner wasn't into cleaning and it was well exposed to our treacherous South Florida salt air.

Typical of almost all these grills, the bottom of the cart was pretty much gone with rust. The back and sides also had rust, though not as bad. The good news was that the bottoms of the legs were only lightly rusted and so very restorable

The lid wouldn't come off because the pins were fused on. (I am so glad I learned about Loctite Anti-Seize Copper from this forum. It will be used on all my restorations from now on.) The inside was mostly a lost cause with dead burners, and not too great flavorizer bars. Amazingly, the deflector shields the 300 series uses below the burners turned out to be very usable even though only porcelain covered steel. The grate was awful, but solid stainless so hopefully can be brought back - with A LOT of work

My friend helped me drill the old pins out, and I disassembled the entire grill. So far, I have started on the frame parts. Here is after removing rough rust:

So far, I have gotten one side coated with Eastwood POR 15 (another great product I learned about here on the forum).

The POR-15 dries into an amazingly solid form. (Don't get it in your hair!) Once I finish the other sides I will be painting and then putting the first parts of the frame together. I have already gathered parts I didn't already have, so things will hopefully pick up in speed when the hard painting is done. I was very interested in the recent posts about cleaning stainless steel. I have had good luck in the past with oven cleaner, but I may try starting with Simple Green and 0000 steel wool gently rubbing in the direction of the grain.

Hope to have more progress to show after this weekend!

 

[LMichaels]

wow that thing really is a mess

 

[Jon Tofte]

Yah, unfortunately that is what happens to them in Florida without inside storage or very diligent care. This one didn’t get either. The huge plus is that the legs were ok. Most I see have at least one rusted off and that is “beyond the skill of the elves” to fix. Sorry for the Lord of the Rings line. I just watched Fellowship of the Ring last night!

Stay tuned; I am working on it. It is a gift to our little college for use by their cafeteria.

 

[Greg M]

Looking forward to seeing the end result. That is a real project!

No need to apologize for the Lord of the rings quote. I'm a fan myself. I took both my boys to see all 3. Great memories and I still have watch them occasionally.

 

[Jon Tofte]

Making some progress!

Rainy weather has slowed me down. I had hoped to clean and re-paint the firebox, but I will have to wait.

I did get gray paint on one side of the two side/frame pieces:

I am no professional painter, and the POR 15 globs up in a few places. I don't really care about having a showroom finish for this project. This grill will serve out its remaining life in back of a college cafeteria churning out burgers and the like. What does matter is trying to make it as rust-proof as possible for our hot, salt air climate.

Here is the replacement I have for the rusted-out bottom. A friend of mine owns a sheet metal shop and, with the help of another company that does laser cutting, he stamped out some of these for my projects. High-grade stainless that will hopefully last:

I put a rust inhibitor on the magnets (after wire brushing the original rust off) and also on the new fastener clips I got from Weber:

My friend also made me some replacement backs that I will be using. I wish I could also do the same for the side/frame pieces. Unfortunately, these are a lot more complex and not cost effective to replicate.

I will try to find some evening time this week and post progress as possible. Having a local barbecue contest Friday, so I will be cooking all day!

 

[Garth C]

Rainy weather has slowed me down. I had hoped to clean and re-paint the firebox, but I will have to wait.

I did get gray paint on one side of the two side/frame pieces:

I am no professional painter, and the POR 15 globs up in a few places. I don't really care about having a showroom finish for this project. This grill will serve out its remaining life in back of a college cafeteria churning out burgers and the like. What does matter is trying to make it as rust-proof as possible for our hot, salt air climate.

Here is the replacement I have for the rusted-out bottom. A friend of mine owns a sheet metal shop and, with the help of another company that does laser cutting, he stamped out some of these for my projects. High-grade stainless that will hopefully last:

I put a rust inhibitor on the magnets (after wire brushing the original rust off) and also on the new fastener clips I got from Weber:

My friend also made me some replacement backs that I will be using. I wish I could also do the same for the side/frame pieces. Unfortunately, these are a lot more complex and not cost effective to replicate.

I will try to find some evening time this week and post progress as possible. Having a local barbecue contest Friday, so I will be cooking all day!

wow. that's impressive. You're building it better than weber did. I've never took out my stainless rod cooking grates out of the grill to clean them. Just scrubbing tops of them before and after cooks. Dang i'm starting to feel it's not worth cleaning them because it's so hard. 5 years of baked on grease/smoke/salt ect.. is really hard to take off. I've used eazy off and in proccess of a 3 day soak in water with some degreaser mixed in. You need some kind of acid to really get them shiny. I had to scrub off alot of the gunk manually with a small metal scraper for round grill rod.

This is as good as I could get the 22 inch stainless charcoal grate that was use religously without the same treatment in 6 years. we'll see how the gasser grates come out.

 

[Jon Tofte]

Garth,

I'd say that looks GREAT! I haven't even tried to start on those horrible grates. I doubt I can get anywhere near that shine. I am figuring on following up the oven cleaner, etc. treatment with some wet sand paper and probably some kind of tool like you mentioned.

p.s. I see you have the Slow-N-Sear. I had never heard of that before I joined this forum. I recently got a "Smokenator" at a good price on eBay. Have only used it once, so I have to learn how to monitor it better. It seems OK. The Slow-N-Sear sure looks like a much better option given the versatility for grilling and slow BBQ. Does it work as well as they claim?

Have a great weekend!
Jon

 

[Garth C]

Garth,

I'd say that looks GREAT! I haven't even tried to start on those horrible grates. I doubt I can get anywhere near that shine. I am figuring on following up the oven cleaner, etc. treatment with some wet sand paper and probably some kind of tool like you mentioned.

p.s. I see you have the Slow-N-Sear. I had never heard of that before I joined this forum. I recently got a "Smokenator" at a good price on eBay. Have only used it once, so I have to learn how to monitor it better. It seems OK. The Slow-N-Sear sure looks like a much better option given the versatility for grilling and slow BBQ. Does it work as well as they claim?

Have a great weekend!
Jon

I actually haven't used the slow n sear yet. Been using the gasser last two weeks. I just dumped the leftover charcoal from my old baskets in. I'm only cleaning one of the gasser grates right now. I'll put a side by side after.

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

That some awesome work on that bottom piece. I probably would use a slow n sear, but I have smokenator that never leaves my garage. Most of the time I'm just going to fire up my wsm. The smokenator requires a lot of tending. If you take out the water pan you can fit a lot more charcoal and get longer burn times. I will say that my smokenator in my kettle maintained temps excellently.

 

[Jon Tofte]

I actually haven't used the slow n sear yet. Been using the gasser last two weeks. I just dumped the leftover charcoal from my old baskets in. I'm only cleaning one of the gasser grates right now. I'll put a side by side after.

Well, that explains how your Slow N Sear looks brand new with no smoke stains but still has what looks like ready to cook charcoal! Kind of like those Weber (and other) advertisement photos with deeply seared steaks sitting on brand new grates that have never seen heat or grease!

Good luck on your grate restoration. Look forward to pictures and tips. Also, hope the Slow N Sear works out as well as they show.

 

[Rich Dahl]

Great work on that restore, sure makes me glad that rust is not allowed in Arizona

 

[Garth C]

Mr. Tofte,

Your grates could with alot of effort look like these too. De-greaser soak a second ez-off soak and alot of scrubbing should get down to this. Grate on the right has only been scraped with aluminum foil and a wood grill scraper in 5 years. Also did the top warming rack (you can see parts where I gave up for comparison) I bought some carbon-off brand gel that i'll use on the other side of grate next time and some older stainless/copper pans the wife uses.

Maybe if I did this yearly it wouldn't be so bad.

 

[Kevin L (NKY)]

i learned from someone on this forum and now i use a water heater pan to soak my grates and then use a SOS pad to get the bad stuff off. it works very well you can clean the grill while your grates soak. i used that POR 15 on my S 310 bottom panel and sides it worked great but yours was much worse than mine was. love the stainless panel that is a beauty.

nice job keep the photos coming.

 

[Jon Tofte]

Progress Continues!

Well I was in a little bbq contest yesterday. Lots of fun and even came home with two first places in pulled pork and beef brisket. Anyway I have been working on parts on my Genesis S-310 restore, and today I put some of the major ones together.

Here is the firebox with new burners and heat deflectors:

Here is the chassis with my restored sides and grease tray holder and custom made stainless bottom and back pieces:

A big improvement from before:

Still need to work on the hood and then those awful grates. Thanks for the encouraging ideas! I will keep on working as time and no more daylight savings time allows. I will post more pics when progress continues.

 

[LMichaels]

looking good there.

 

[Bruce]

Yah, I think the phrase "Better than new" actually applies here.

 

[Rusty James]

Impressive rebuild, Jon!

I've burnt out many parts on a CNC burn table myself, and you were very fortunate to have access to such components.

 

[THyde]

That grill is coming along great!

 

[Jon Tofte]

Mission accomplished!

Well, at long last I was able to complete the renovation of a Genesis S-310 and donate it to our little local college. In earlier posts I showed some pics of what it looked like when I got it on Craigslist for $75. Here are some before and afters:

I was able to salvage the original stainless grates and make them look at least reasonably good, I think. The burners and flavorizers were shot, so I replaced. I also replaced the heat deflectors that go under the burners using stainless ones. The originals were still usable, but I wanted to make this grill as rust proof as I could.

BEFORE: (I think this is what got LM to call this poor grill "a mess!")

AFTER:

Here is the whole grill before:

And after:

The college head cook, Kayla, was very happy to have a "like-new" grill to cook on! I hope to make her another so she will have adequate grill space

I hope all you all enjoyed. Next project is to do a double-restoration hopefully making an all-original red-head 1000 series and a custom Skyline grill with a 3000/4000 chassis and some of my own ideas. Stay tuned!

 

[Bruce]

I have a couple E310s waiting to be worked on. I will have to wait until spring however. How did the storage compartment look on your grill? Was there any rust?