My First Grill - Weber Platinum Series II (Blue)


 
Colin W said:
I think if I replace/upgrade everything that is showing some wear(flavo bars, grates, burners, catch pan) or missing(accessory rack, warming rack/basket) i'll be into the grill for ~$500 including the price of the grill($60), cleaning/painting supplies($40), and the cost of driving the truck to go pick it up($10). Still about 1/2 the cost of a comparable new Genesis so I can justify it to myself that way haha! plus it's got the cool factor
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In addition to what others have said, one thing you can do with out (in my opinion at least) is the catch pan. $25 for one of those? When I moved in,the previous owner had left their crappy old grill. It's destined for the garbage, but it gave me one good idea - tin can and some coat hangers. Bam, drip pan. Doesn't look pretty, but given that I've got both lying around the house, it's free.

Personally, as has already been said here, I'd skip the warming racks. The rehab unit I bought still had them, but they're both rusted. I'm not replacing them. If I want toasted buns or something, I'll just toss them on right at the end. You shouldn't have to spend anywhere near $500 to fix up this grill.


If you want to get stuff from Dave, don't do it through his ebay store - contact him directly through his Craigslist ads. You'll get better prices that way. Just mention the forum. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/for/d/weber-flavor-bars-and-grates/7119534434.html
 
I find it oddly discomforting how everybody on there (some of you being "small business people" just like Dave Santana are not better promoting his stuff and recommending cheap Chineseum stuff. His stuff is not THAT costly. It's made right here and supports someone's small business. His grates for example are half the cost of comparable Weber ones (which ARE made in China), and far better made as well. I have not priced his flavo bars but I would have to think like the Weber grates most likely a bargain in comparison. (I have not needed flavo bars for many years thanks to my dad's friend who made us some sets custom). But, for my own grill I would never hesitate to buy his stuff. I won't disclose what he charged me to build my custom grates on my Wolf but let's just say I was shocked at how inexpensive they were!
 
Larry, it is simply a matter of cost vs quality. Not everyone drives a cadillac or wants the $500 a month payment. Many can get back and forth to work quite happily in a Toyota for $250 a month. A good set of Amazon grates are half of what Dave's grates cost. Many of these guys rehabbing their first grill are also very new to grilling in general and really don't need and probably wouldn't even take full advantage of a premium set of grates. Some people only grill a dozen times a summer and just want something dependable they can throw their burgers or brats on that won't cave in after a couple years.

It is the same thing with HF tools. Why buy a $60 Dewalt angle grinder to clean up a grill when you can get one at HF for $9.99 that will do the job. Sure, if you are a big DIY guy or a contractor, then the Dewalt is probably the better deal, but for the average joe who uses one maybe once a year, HF is the way to go.

I am baseball, apple pie and all that, but for some things, it just doesn't make cents.

For the record, I own RCP grates and flavorizer bars and love them. I also own two HF angle grinders and a Dewalt.
 
Thanks for the tips, all. Sounds like I could skip the racks and source cheaper burner bars and probably knock $100 off without really changing my grilling experience. I could drop another $100 from the budget by getting cheaper flavos and grates but I might still splurge on the higher quality ones seeing as I intend to have this for a long while. I grew up grilling on charcoal Webers so I'm not totally new to grilling. I've just never owned my own grill. I promise not to let this one be lightly used!
 
Ive mentionned it many times, before buying China from Amazon, call weber!
I get all my parts from them, if you are nice and ask for it, they usually discount parts pretty good, for example, OEM flavor bars run me 45$, new burners 20$! Catch pan holder 4.5$! Most of the small parts are few cents!
 
Me as well. But I look at cost vs quality vs application. I use an angle grinder MAYBE twice a year so buying an expensive high quality one (which BTW just try and find any of them not made in China, Malaysia, Vietnam, and so on) but I digress. For my needs once/twice a year the $20 HF is fine. But for things like hand tools I go out of my way for example to seek out high quality US Made ones, I try to support people like Santana (Dave not Carlos LOL) as much as possible. I don't view it as Ferrari vs a Corolla. But, as supporting the little guy whenever I can. And again I look at the cost vs benefit as well. Even in my mixer business. If I use aftermarket for something (like the rubber feet) I source from a guy like Dave who makes them here and sells them to me at a great price so I can do things like include new feet on every machine I service that needs them for free.
For someone like you where you're simply trying to turn a profit.....................I get it. The Amazon stuff is fine. But for something I keep it's not
 
I wish I can get as much activities on my post . But that's a different story....

It all depends on your needs. Who's to say what's right or wrong. The grill that is being restored has a great frame that will outlast most. So it would be "worthwhile" to get parts to reflect the same. If this was a flip, then sourcing cheaper parts would be best to optimize profit. But if this was a keeper, getting the best will be worthwhile down the road, albeit taking may years to get a ROI.

disclaimer, I have 2 Rcplanebuyer flavor bars because I'm lazy to care for them. I'm pretty discipline with my grates and i'm still using the originals that came with the junker.
 
LMichaels said:
I find it oddly discomforting how everybody on there (some of you being "small business people" just like Dave Santana are not better promoting his stuff and recommending cheap Chineseum stuff. His stuff is not THAT costly. It's made right here and supports someone's small business. His grates for example are half the cost of comparable Weber ones (which ARE made in China), and far better made as well. I have not priced his flavo bars but I would have to think like the Weber grates most likely a bargain in comparison. (I have not needed flavo bars for many years thanks to my dad's friend who made us some sets custom). But, for my own grill I would never hesitate to buy his stuff. I won't disclose what he charged me to build my custom grates on my Wolf but let's just say I was shocked at how inexpensive they were!
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I promote both because I recognize that everyone has different circumstances. The difference between flavor bars on Amazon (~$60 after tax) and $68 shipped from Dave is a no-brainer to me. But $50 for grates on Amazon vs $115 from Dave...for some people, that's just the cost of supporting a small businessman. For others, that's a considerable amount of money, especially during these times. If I had no mortgage payments, a job, and plenty of money to spare, I'd go with the little guy every time. As an unemployed person with over 29 years of house payments left, I need to be careful with my spending.
 
Yah, you have one of the most sought after grills (for Weber folks anyway) so why not give it the best? Of course, it's totally up to you but I have 2 sets of Dave's hardware for both of my grills and have never looked back. My brother has the SS grates from Quilmetal (and bars from Dave) and they're still going strong but he only got them because there was a special on them when they first released. If you still think Dave's stuff is out of your price range then check out the ones on bbqparts.com as I'd put them behind Dave's but from what I've heard, they're still quality parts (and made in USA too).
 
Update: decided to go with the rcplanebuyer grates and flavor bars. Restoration will commence in earnest tomorrow.

total updated budget for those who might care(i would have liked to see a budget broken down when planning this):
  • FB Marketplace - $60
    • grill
  • Gasoline to transport grill - $10
  • Cleaning/painting supplies(Farm & Fleet) - $24.94
    • rust-oleum ultra(semi-gloss)
    • wire brush - i found one here after i ordered a new one :(
    • simple green
    • spray bottle
    • brake parts cleaner
  • Paint(Amazon) - $6.79
    • Rust-oleum high heat, flat black
  • Cleaning supplies(cleanitsupply.com)- $11
    • Power dissolver. it came with 6 bottles but i only count the cost of one bottle towards this project. the others will be used eventually. This appears to be everyone's favorite discontinued product on this forum and elsewhere. there will be plenty of uses for it.
  • Bars/grates(Ebay) - $232.15
    • flavorizer bars
    • grates
  • Catch Pan Kit - $11.73(could have probably saved $5 by calling Weber)
running total: $356.61

single-blade razor + handle, plastic scraper, and 000 steel wool are already on hand. Depending on what happens with cleaning the burner bars this weekend, the total could stay around $350 or jump up to ~$400.

I realize some of my costs(cleaning/painting supplies) are being counted as one-time costs for restoring the grill when they will in reality be used for more than this project. But, it's my first restore so that seems fair. So, this budget probably overestimates costs by ~$20 for the pros that do this regularly. you could also cut ~$100 dollars by sourcing grates and flavos from elsewhere. So, for a flipper, i imagine the budget would be ~$225 at most.
 
Since you have gone this far, you should also change out the bolts to stainless steel and also clean the valves on the manifold.
 
update - disassembly and cleaning is just about complete! Key problems encountered and lessons learned so far:

  • The lid and end caps took a crazy amount of time to clean but they're much prettier now(pictures attached). I must have spent 5-10 hours scraping those parts with razor blades over the weekend. It would have gone much more swiftly if i'd been quicker to realize just how frequently I should be changing blades(literally after every minute or two of scraping). The lesson here is that happiness is a sharp blade. Get a box of 100 blades and switch frequently. Also, wear glasses because blades can break pretty easily and fly around the room
  • Two bolts broke off inside of the firebox during disassembly which slowed the whole thing down. I have them out now but will definitely be getting SS bolts and applying anti-seize during re-assembly.
    • For picking up SS replacements - is there actually a 'kit' that you can purchase for this? I can obviously stop by hardware store with the ones I've removed, but it would be a time saver if someone already had this together
  • There are still a couple parts I need to call Weber to figure out the right replacement for:
    • igniter(i think i found the right one but doesn't hurt to check). old one is badly damaged as shown in picture
    • tray rails on bottom of firebox. old ones are heavily corroded
I also need a cover but am not sure if getting the Weber cover is a good idea - there seem to be a lot of comments about the lack of waterproofing on here. is there a better after market product? I'm planning to leave this grill on the deck over the summer and pull it into the 3 season porch for the winter. So a cover with waterproofing would be worth the investment

Other than that it's been pretty unsurprising so far, which is a good thing.

Next steps are to repair several spots of surface rust, touch up a couple chips on the edges of the lid, and repaint the frame and firebox. Then, when replacement parts come in we'll be ready to reassemble
 

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one other question for the group. For grills that have textured rubber handles like this one does - what's the best way to clean those? I've gone over it with simple green and oxyclean, but that hasn't removed 100% of the markings. The last picture in the post above shows what it looks like after cleaning.
 
Colin W said:
update - disassembly and cleaning is just about complete! Key problems encountered and lessons learned so far:

  • The lid and end caps took a crazy amount of time to clean but they're much prettier now(pictures attached). I must have spent 5-10 hours scraping those parts with razor blades over the weekend. It would have gone more quickly if i'd been quicker to realize just how frequently I should be changing blades(literally after every minute or two of scraping). The lesson here is that happiness is a sharp blade. Get a box of 100 blades and switch frequently. Also, wear glasses because blades can break pretty easily and fly around the room
Yes, it is amazing how a new blade makes things easier.
  • Two bolts broke off inside of the firebox during disassembly which slowed the whole thing down. I have them out now but will definitely be getting SS bolts and applying anti-seize during re-assembly.
    • For picking up SS replacements - is there actually a 'kit' that you can purchase for this? I can obviously stop by hardware store with the ones I've removed, but it would be a time saver if someone already had this together
  • There are still a couple parts I need to call Weber to figure out the right replacement for:
    • igniter(i think i found the right one but doesn't hurt to check). old one is badly damaged as shown in picture
You need kit #9509 or #9510 depending on if you have the one with the push button igniter that clips into the grill frame or the one that has a nut to fasten it in. Aftermarket ones (just as good as Weber) can be had on Amazon for about $8 delivered with the metal gas collector and push button piezo.
    • tray rails on bottom of firebox. old ones are heavily corroded
Heavily corroded is OK if they are not going to fail completely. Again, aftermarket Amazon will likely save you some bucks over ordering from Weber.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=weber+Silver+B+drip+tray+rails&ref=nb_sb_noss&tag=TVWB-20

I also need a cover but am not sure if getting the Weber cover is a good idea - there seem to be a lot of comments about the lack of waterproofing on here. is there a better after market product? I'm planning to leave this grill on the deck over the summer and pull it into the 3 season porch for the winter. So a cover with waterproofing would be worth the investment

Other than that it's been pretty unsurprising so far, which is a good thing.

Next steps are to repair several spots of surface rust, touch up a couple chips on the edges of the lid, and repaint the frame and firebox. Then, when replacement parts come in we'll be ready to reassemble
Click to expand...
 
Colin,
Looking good so far. Keep up the fine work.

The drip pan rails are Weber # 97883 like Bruce posted and are available from several vendors.
The igniter will be Weber #7509, it is the one with the threaded nut.

The handle is unique to the Platinum II and while it is different it is a pain to keep clean. What I do once a year is take it off as well as the 3 control knobs and 1 side burner knob and soak it in a large bucket of hot water with about a 1/3 to 1/2 cup of bleach. After about an hour or so it comes out looking like brand new.

Jeff
 
Do it once, do it right, take your time and enjoy that blue pearl for years to come! I’m happy for your find! Only slightly less happy than if I had tripped over it.
One day....
 
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