Hypothetically . . .

[Brian Dahl]

if someone happened to come across a three wheeler w/ a heat distorted third wheel... can someone (I) heat up and flatten the curves? And, maybe, the lid vent tab is bent down... same thing, could someone heat it up and re-erect the tab? With like a propane torch? Thank You.

 

[James N]

To be honest i'd just order a set from Weber to be on the safe side....If i was goibg to try and fix the bottom vent i do some tapping on it with a rubber mallet till i got it where i wanted it to be.

 

[timothy]

My 18.5"WSM bottom vents got similarly mangled up from my dogs knocking it around. For the bent over vent tab I used a flat metal scraper like a 5 in 1 tool to pry it away and finished bending the 90 with a pair of duck bill pliers.
For forming the vents to follow the curve of the bowl I used a short pc of 3" PVC pipe, tapped the end a few times with a rubber mallet and it worked pretty good.
Since the kettle vents are wider you could find the right sized pipe or even an old large soup/veg can.

Tim

 

[Pete in PG]

Those are aluminum and can be bent back to original shape, but Weber sells the dampers and they fit perfectly. You would likely need to remove the dampers to get them back into shape. The top one may be worth salvaging imo if it has some older info on it.