Soooo I was checking my FB ads and while there that other Weber forum popped up with some guy showing a video of his garage full of 300 series Weber grills. Since I resto mainly 300 series I chatted with him briefly then asked him what he did about those frozen seized manifold bolts on the sidewinders and also the seized hood pins. I have gotten pretty good at removing the hood hinge pins with PB blaster and a pair of vice grips and a bunch of patience. I also tap the pins with a hammer repeatedly to break them free eventually. Key word there is " tap ".
Anyway I asked the guy if he had a trick for those two buggers. He said he uses heat and his hammer drill on the setting for just " hammer " without the spinning of the selection " hammer drill ". Now I remember Bruce teaching us that he uses his impact drill to remove some of the cook box bolts but he just lets his drill chatter to break the bolts free vs making his drill hammer hard. Well this guys method worked like a champ for me...I was shocked. I have a real darn nice hammer drill that I rarely use and I have never used the feature mentioned. I dialed up the " hammer " selection and inserted a drill bit the same side as the hood pin. My goal was to just have the drill chatter softly until the hood pin breaks free as I did not want to damage the hood hinge or the cook box. Man o man.....I was able to keep that drill bit just a tappin on that hinge pin....tap tap tap tap tap tap then to my surprise my hammer drill went TAP TAP TAP so fast I couldnt even pull it away.....those last three taps were strong ones and that hinge pin immediately broke free. Of course those hard taps that happened super quick could have easily broke the cook box hinge or the hood hinge but it didnt. This will take some more experimenting to really dial it in but if I can get those pesky pins out in 5 seconds safely I am all in.
Anyway I asked the guy if he had a trick for those two buggers. He said he uses heat and his hammer drill on the setting for just " hammer " without the spinning of the selection " hammer drill ". Now I remember Bruce teaching us that he uses his impact drill to remove some of the cook box bolts but he just lets his drill chatter to break the bolts free vs making his drill hammer hard. Well this guys method worked like a champ for me...I was shocked. I have a real darn nice hammer drill that I rarely use and I have never used the feature mentioned. I dialed up the " hammer " selection and inserted a drill bit the same side as the hood pin. My goal was to just have the drill chatter softly until the hood pin breaks free as I did not want to damage the hood hinge or the cook box. Man o man.....I was able to keep that drill bit just a tappin on that hinge pin....tap tap tap tap tap tap then to my surprise my hammer drill went TAP TAP TAP so fast I couldnt even pull it away.....those last three taps were strong ones and that hinge pin immediately broke free. Of course those hard taps that happened super quick could have easily broke the cook box hinge or the hood hinge but it didnt. This will take some more experimenting to really dial it in but if I can get those pesky pins out in 5 seconds safely I am all in.
