Before, During and After: Weber Genesis Silver B


 
Bob,

Gave up on the bolts yesterday because I wanted to assemble the grill to ... grill!

Tomorrow I'm thinking may be "tackle the cookbox day" .... which means I'll be drilling out the bolt that holds the left hand side to the cart. That one is NOT coming out any other way. I broke it again in the face of PB Blaster, torch, etc. It's just a nub now, and the new plan for that bolt is to drill it out and then replace it with a SS bolt. No biggie, it just holds the cookbox to the cart.

The only other two bolts are the manifold-holding bolts on the right hand side. Those currently are seized in the cookbox, both with broken heads but with intact and functional thread-ends which are holding the manifold on even as we speak. I should be able to double-nut them and wiggle / hammer / curse and get them out. The replacement burners had those bolts in the box, so the new ones are just sitting there waiting to be installed. The old ones are so rusted they are virtually welded to the box!

Hopefully tomorrow is cookbox paint day. I'll be sure to put up pictures.

Hopeful that I'll do less harm and more good!

Patience, in my experience, is my friend in these situations, which is why I'm taking my time and taking entire days to think, plan and then execute. Forced patience!

How's the 1000 coming along?

Tim
 
Here is some nice progress.

001_2.jpg


Painting the pieces.

002_2.jpg


More painting: the cookbox fits perfect on a 5 gallon bucket without touching anywhere except on the inside. Pins for the lid are in the box in the center.

005_2.jpg


Reassembled, right hand side. The finish came out OK, but not perfect. That's all right though.

006_2.jpg


Reassembled left hand side. This side looks a lot better.

The whole grill looks a heck of a lot better than when the project started. Now, Thursday the cart pieces come in, and that should be the final dis-assembly / reassembly for a while. SHOULD :)
 
Thanks; I have some honesty to take pictures of and post soon.

First lesson: The reason people say not to drill into steel bolts surrounded by an aluminum frame. I will show the reason.

Second lesson: Patience, patience patience.

Third lesson: Have patience.

Fourth lesson: Have a little patience, OK?

I'll post up some dumb things I did. I need to take pictures, but I'm not ashamed that I screwed some things up. The good news is, the grill is in great shape, totally functional. The bad news? It's not at all perfect.

Live and learn!

More to come ... hopefully some of my mistakes can help others!
 
Bad news first. Here are the parts I screwed up trying to drill steel screws out of an aluminum cookbox.

I did not fully think this through, but what ends up happening is the drill runs off the steel and cuts right into the soft aluminum. It's really hard to drill only the steel. I'm pretty sure that this is why people advise against doing this.

Here's the damage; I had to drill a very large hole here in order to get the manifold holes to work:

008.jpg


You can see the imperfect hole (you can even see the threads on the bolt).

The fix was to use a large stainless steel washer.

I was going to say "the same thing happened" on the hole where you bolt the cookbox to the frame, but a more accurate thing to say is "I also screwed up the hole where the cookbox bolts to the frame". Gotta take responsibility for my mistakes. Patience almost certainly would have resulted in a different outcome. Anyway, here is that bolt from the inside. It could definitely be a lot worse:

007.jpg


Then, the third part where I screwed up some aluminum is the other manifold bolt hole, but this one is not too bad at all, especially with the washer:

009.jpg
 
The good news is, the grill is now totally 100% functional. There are no non-working parts, and by and large it is repainted and ready for another several years.

Let's try for a "before / after":

Before:

001.jpg


After:

004.jpg


Why do I suddenly want hot dogs?
 
How did you make out with the bolts that broke off in the bottom for the pan rails? Mine snapped off with little effort so I'm going to be forced to drill them out.
My two bolts that hold the manifold on are also basically welded to the box. The wing nuts came off easily enough so I'll probably just leave well enough alone and leave the bolts as they are.

Awesome looking grill you got there. Great work!
 
Michael William said:
How did you make out with the bolts that broke off in the bottom for the pan rails? Mine snapped off with little effort so I'm going to be forced to drill them out.
My two bolts that hold the manifold on are also basically welded to the box. The wing nuts came off easily enough so I'll probably just leave well enough alone and leave the bolts as they are.

Awesome looking grill you got there. Great work!
Click to expand...
Mike..just leave those manifold bolts alone. as long as the wingnuts spin on and off thats all you need to hold the manifold in place. i used some never sieze on the nuts when re-installing to insure they stay workable
 
Hi Mike,

There was one bolt that broke off on the bottom holding the rails on. I had to remove all four bolts (two per rail) because the rails were ruined and useless.

I ended up drilling the one bolt out, very carefully. Like BobW will tell you, that drill is going to want to wander and eat up that soft aluminum. What I did was use very small bits, keeping them in the center of the bolt as much as I could, and gradually increasing the bit diameter until I got it just big enough for the new bolt. In my case, I went a little too big, but I shoved a toothpick in the hole and it seems to be holding. A better idea would be to put some steel wool in there to keep the bolt tight, but since I'm not really using this grill (I went a little grill crazy and found a Redhead Genesis 3000) I'm not very concerned about it at this time. The bolt is nice and tight though, and I did use the Silver B many times without problems.

Like Bob says, just leave the manifold bolts alone. I should have listened to Bob and others, but I'm the kind of moron who only learns by screwing things up!

Good luck, let's see some pictures!

Tim
 
Hi Mike,

I'm aware that on this site there is sponsorship from I believe Amazon, so I'm not sure what the etiquette is for recommending vendors.

The rails are easy enough to find with Google.

If you have a lot of trouble, send me a private message and I can show you where to go.

But seriously, just google "weber grill replacement parts" and you will be fine.

Good luck!

Tim
 
Sadly, the Genesis Silver B is now for sale on Craigslist.

Happily, the Genesis 3000 has been reliably cooking up delicious meals all summer!

Just don't have the deck space for two grills.

Thank you everyone for all of your help!

You guys are the best!
 
I have the exact same Silver B except that my lid color is green enamel. I really like that this model has the second swing up table. That provides a lot of work space when both are flipped up but with a small footprint when down.

I'd like to repaint the entire outside of the firebox. No rust but looking old and faded. Then I have just a few touch up spots on the frame and the sides of the lid. Not sure if I'm better off leaving the touch ups alone rather than having mis-matched paint or having to paint the entire frame and sides.

I"ve seen various recommendations for Krylon or Rust-o-leum high heat paints in various finishes. What's best for the firebox? And the frame? And the lid ends?

Firebox looks to me like it should be flat finish paint. Frames and lid sides more glossy.

Since the amount of repainting actually required is minor, I'm trying to avoid a one step forward, two steps back outcome.

Thanks!
 
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