Anyone in the Juniper FL area want to rehab a Crown Verity Grill??

[Anthony@TO]

Using baking soda and vinegar will not work. Use vinegar ONLY as if you use both one neutralizes the other. The vinegar will dissolve the little rust bits in the stainless pores and will work. But, you cannot make it work with both. Another thing you can use on it is "Lime Away" which uses phosphorous to dissolve rust. But WEAR GLOVES because believe me that stuff WILL eat your skin off

Thanks for the tip again, Larry.

I'll try the vinegar first. I'm going to stay away from Lime Away stuff...like to keep my skin intact lol. Never heard of it, so it might not even be available in Canada.

 

[Jon Tofte]

Vinegar worked very well. I have company but will post pictures tomorrow. I think that all that was on it for the most part may have been that they tried using steel wool to clean it. My young helper got most of it clean. He will finish up on Monday, and I will let him use some of my metal polish. Not worrying about the inside which doesn't look half bad. This thing has a HUGE drip pan which hopefully will keep our college cooks from messing up so easily.

 

[Anthony@TO]

They should pour water into the drip pan to keep the flare ups to a minimum.

Hopefully vinegar will take off the corrosion on my unit.

 

[Jon Tofte]

Crown Verity getting cleaned up!

As you know, I picked up the Crown Verity that was listed for $100 on OfferUp. No, not for me! It was purchased by my organization for the cafeteria of our small college. I was just the "agent" and will supervise the clean-up. The goal is just to get it looking decent and running OK, not to make it a deck queen!

From my limited reading, these grills go for around $2,000 and are manufactured in Canada using all high-grade stainless. They are aimed at the commercial market and are straight-up simple with no bells or whistles. Perfect for its planned use.

The seller was very disappointed at the surface rust, but I think it may have been that he used steel wool to clean it, or perhaps as Larry suggests there was some kind of manufacturing error. Actually, it really didn't look that bad (grill disassembles easily for transport; just two pins and you can remove the whole lid assembly and the side shelf just slides off as well):

The burners and flavorizer equivalents look to be sort of integrated. (I haven't disassembled or examined yet.) They are corroded, but I am hoping our cafeteria can make them work for a while. I hear that replacements are very pricey.

One interesting thing about this grill is that it has a "pilot light" burner (silver thing in center in next picture). You light that first (controlled by off color knob on right) - looks like using a lighter - and the flame from that works like a Weber crossover tube providing flame on demand for any of the five main burners you choose to light.

My boss's son is doing some work for us this summer, and he provided the labor for the initial clean up. We used Larry's recommendation and cleaned with white distilled vinegar. Most of the rust came off easily seeming to confirm that it was not deep metal rust but surface contamination. I think it came out looking fairly decent - certainly better than the $100 price tag suggests:

Monday's plan is to finish cleaning the lower body and then polish all the stainless with Mother's metal polish. We are going to scrape the thick stainless rod grates a little bit, but otherwise are not worrying about the inside. The seller turned it over pretty clean, and it will be covered with burger grease in no time, anyway. Only other problem is a broken axle which hopefully won't be a hard to find replacement. Way thicker than Weber axles, so I am hard pressed to see what could have caused a total break other than some kind of brittleness in the stainless. No sign of abuse on the grill.

I will post some more pictures and also look up the serial number as I have been asked. Hopefully follow up with some real use pictures when school resumes next month.

This just about fits in the "miracle" category. I have been trying hard (and blundering with Summit disasters) to come up with a really good solution for our cafeteria ladies. This is it! The price is unbelievable, and I am trusting that this grill will be a blessing to those who use it.

 

[Bruce]

So, have you fired that bad boy up yet??

 

[Bruce]

Hey, Jon, I think your school needs more grill space.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1843338865976031/

 

[Jason in CA]

Hey, Jon, I think your school needs more grill space.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1843338865976031/

I recognize the emblem on that. If it's anything like the grill I had from the same maker it should last about three years if one is lucky.

 

[LMichaels]

That thing does look like a tank. The kid doesn't look all that happy though LOL

 

[Anthony@TO]

The kid did a good job cleaning up the exterior! He should be well rewarded lol

The radiant (flavour bars) and grates look to be in bad shape. The radiants on my unit seem to have held up a little better. Unfortunately one of the valves is in a stuck position so I need to access it to have it cleaned or replaced.

Jon, did you get a good look at the internals yet? I think all the burner tubes and the radiants have to be removed in order to access the valves?

 

[Brian B Atlanta]

Jon, that thing looks really nice great find.

 

[LMichaels]

There does seem to be a lot of degradation to the heat tent especially if they're supposed to be "high quality stainless". The ones on my Wolf have no degradation what ever. Same for the burners which are VERY thick stainless given their weight and thickness I'd say the metal on my burners is 16 ga anyway they're really thick and heavy. My tents not so much but I can wire brush them clean and they nearly shine

 

[Anthony@TO]

Some of the internal parts are really thin SS, like the heat shield. The shield covering the pilot burner is rotting on my unit. But the frame looks to be very solid.

I finally came around to it yesterday and used two bottles of Easy Off. Here are the results.

 

[Jon Tofte]

The kid did a good job cleaning up the exterior! He should be well rewarded lol

The radiant (flavour bars) and grates look to be in bad shape. The radiants on my unit seem to have held up a little better. Unfortunately one of the valves is in a stuck position so I need to access it to have it cleaned or replaced.

Jon, did you get a good look at the internals yet? I think all the burner tubes and the radiants have to be removed in order to access the valves?

I have done no disassembling yet. The young fellow did do a good job cleaning and actually did enjoy it. I told him to not do anything to the inside. Friday was a busy day and had to concentrate on office accounting. Hopefully on Monday I can put a little more time into it while my helper finishes cleaning and then polishes.

I briefly looked into cost of “radiants” aka flavorizers. Looks like a new set of 5 would be $180. Ditto for a new set of 5 burners. I will check it all out before doing anything more. It would be nice if at least the burners were still good. They are warranted for ten years. Hopefully, can stretch out these replacements as long as it works reasonably well and is safe. As I said before it is not a deck queen, just a burger factory!

 

[Brian B Atlanta]

Jon, could RC make a set of those it would seem to be way cheaper that $180.00 and its only 5 bars.

 

[Anthony@TO]

I have done no disassembling yet. The young fellow did do a good job cleaning and actually did enjoy it. I told him to not do anything to the inside. Friday was a busy day and had to concentrate on office accounting. Hopefully on Monday I can put a little more time into it while my helper finishes cleaning and then polishes.

I briefly looked into cost of “radiants” aka flavorizers. Looks like a new set of 5 would be $180. Ditto for a new set of 5 burners. I will check it all out before doing anything more. It would be nice if at least the burners were still good. They are warranted for ten years. Hopefully, can stretch out these replacements as long as it works reasonably well and is safe. As I said before it is not a deck queen, just a burger factory!

The cost for the radiants and burner tubes sound about right. They cost C$45 each up here in Canada. It’s hard pressed to find a dealer who’s willing to discount them for you. You don’t want to know what the grates and the bun rack will cost
Once you start replacing parts, they add up very quickly.

Here are the list of parts I inquired, all in CAD of course.

Grate set $390
Bun rack $230
Pilot shield $115
Burners $45 ea
Radiant $45 ea
Knob $10 ea
Knob (new style) $20 ea
Natural gas valve $40 ea
NG manifold $54

 

[Anthony@TO]

Jon, could RC make a set of those it would seem to be way cheaper that $180.00 and its only 5 bars.

If RC can fabricate these radiants at a more reasonable price I would be interested too. The radiant is not the same as the Weber flavour bars, it has an extra piece of metal at each end to fit the burner tube.

 

[Jon Tofte]

If RC can fabricate these radiants at a more reasonable price I would be interested too. The radiant is not the same as the Weber flavour bars, it has an extra piece of metal at each end to fit the burner tube.

Yeah, that definitely changes the picture for fabricating from scratch. I will try to evaluate everything on Monday. I have my “own” rcplanebuyer in my friend who owns a sheet metal shop. He might be willing to help and would make them of heavier gauge 304 stainless. I will have to see. The main grates are not that bad and will cleanup well enough with some hard work. The warming rack looks worse but it too can be salvaged. Both look to be heavy stainless so it is just a matter of getting all the junk off. I will be following the mantra of keeping the cost low!

 

[Anthony@TO]

Jon, is your CV grill NG or LP?

My unit is NG. While I was cleaning the grill, yet again, I realize the gas hose on the CV look a little bigger than the one on the S330. I went over and disconnected the line from the house source and compared it to the line on the CV. The connection on the CV looks to be 1/2” while it’s only 3/8” on the Weber. That means the quick disconnect from the source can only accommodate 3/8” D’OH!!

I went to the basement and checked the tag left behind by the gas man, it says the pipe size is 1/2”. So if I have 1/2” pipe going out, can it accommodate an 1/2” quick disconnect? Or do I have to re-run the gasline to outside with 3/4” pipe size to accommodate an 1/2” quick disconnect?

 

[LMichaels]

The 1/2" line should pass plenty of gas for the grill. My Wolf also uses a 1/2" gas line (flexible hose) where the other grills (Weber) use 3/8" hose. You may have to find a 1/2" quick disconnect female fitting for the grill. Hold on to your shorts though those 1/2" lines are expensive

 

[Anthony@TO]

The 1/2" line should pass plenty of gas for the grill. My Wolf also uses a 1/2" gas line (flexible hose) where the other grills (Weber) use 3/8" hose. You may have to find a 1/2" quick disconnect female fitting for the grill. Hold on to your shorts though those 1/2" lines are expensive

My source line is 1/2" pipe size, so I can just swap out the 3/8" for an 1/2" quick disconnect female? Just want to make sure I don't need a larger 3/4" pipe size to add a 1/2" quick disconnect. If I need to rerun a larger pipe size, the wife is going to wheel out my CV to the curb!!


BTW, vinegar & the kitchen scrubbing pad worked very well in removing off the surface oxidation off of the CV. You forgot one thing though...it requires a lot of elbow grease LOL. Thanks for the tips, Larry.