First Time for Everything I Guess


 

John-NY

TVWBB Pro
I just picked up what I thought was going to be a routine Silver B acquisition

Upon removing the grates and flavor bars, I noticed something very strange and was completely unsure of what I was actually looking at.

At first, I thought it was just the normal junk and gunk at the bottom of a cook box.
But then I came to the horrific realization that this was something else altogether. And I started to realize why the seller kept mentioning “charcoal”while he was talking to me.

From right underneath the burners all the way to the very bottom of the grease tray was gunk rocks, and glass.

Just for fun I asked him if all of that stuff is to collect the grease and what not.
He replied to me that no, it is the charcoal that heats the food from the bottom. He said that that is what ignites. He said the burners like the top part and the charcoal on the bottom heats everything else. I asked him when the last time he replaced them was and he said never they have been in there for 20 years. He kept telling me that if I didn’t want to take these ones with me that I could go get new ones at Lowe’s.

The best part is that when I tried to pull the grease tray out, I noticed it wouldn’t budge. So I looked underneath and saw that he had bolted the grease tray to the rails, obviously since all those rocks added about 20 pounds of downward pressure.

So thankfully, he had a bucket and I was able to wear gloves and remove all of that nonsense before getting it into my vehicle.

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My understanding of flavor bars was to limit the flare ups that come with the lava rock. I’ll admit, when I picked up my first gasser a few years ago I was confused as to why there were no rocks in it.
 
My understanding of flavor bars was to limit the flare ups that come with the lava rock. I’ll admit, when I picked up my first gasser a few years ago I was confused as to why there were no rocks in it.
And he's got the whole thing bass ackwards. In a rock type grill the burner is under the rocks
 
Have to imagine that hurt the airflow substantially. Wonder if that hurt the burn? If that makes sense?
I'm sure it was quite orange and dirty flame. Those burners are engineered for a proper A/F ratio. That comes from air in the venturi portion and air entering the firebox from other openings i.e. the bottom which is why you cannot balance the shutters with the lid open and the grease tray/flavorizers out or off
 
My first Genesis 300 (front controls) pick up was similar --- for some reason the owner had put ceramic briquettes between the flavor bars and of course some fell thru.... all I could think is what a dumfook. At least it cleaned up easily and there was no damage caused by it. I'm pretty sure he gave it away because it wasn't heating correctly anymore with all the crap in there --- I think he was throwing wood chunks under the grates too.
 
Somehow I guess I topped myself just two days later.

I shouldn’t have complained too much about the lava rocks because this was what I ran into today upon disassembly…

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Oh, mice love grills for nesting. I am surprised those boots on the valves are not all chewed up. Mice love those silicone parts and they love the plastic knobs, wheels and rubber hoses on grills.
 
I have had grills with active nests inside of them. One with babies. I don't mind lighting the grill and watching the mice evacuate, but the one with babies I hand disposed of that one.

I picked one up a few days ago that had 5 wasp nests inside of it. One was still active.
 

 

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