My Freebie Silver B Premium - Troubleshooting

[Ryan RS in Mass]

I posted at least one photo of the Silver B Premium that I picked up for free off of Facebook Marketplace on Labor Day Weekend from Cape Cod in one of Bruce's threads, but I figured I'd start a thread for it.

A friend of mine seems interested in this grill if I can fix it up, so while I had pondered using it for parts, I am at least going to attempt to fix it first - and make him pay for the parts I have to buy.

Last night I hooked it up to a known good propane tank and I cannot get it to fire up at all.
It does not smell as though there is propane coming out of the burner tube and I tried all the tricks, hooked and unhooked the propane tank, waited, etc.

I will need to play with it some more as if it doesn't work, I won't be spending any time on it other than stripping parts off of it.

That said, it is in ok physical condition other than the obvious lower shelf rot and missing doors.

It doesn't appear to have been used for years.

I am going to convert it to the wire shelf option if I can find one for reasonable money and add some square tubing to brace it properly.

One drawback of this thing is the missing flavorizer bars and grates - and missing knobs because I pilfered them for my Cape Silver B.

I will determine cheap solutions to each of the missing items if I can at least get it to fire.

Anyway, pictures are better than words I know, so here's the listing photo:

And some late night photos I took in my driveway after getting it home:

 

[Rich Dahl]

Sounds like a bad regulator, if it sat for years it's probably shot especially if it wasn't hooked up to a tank.

 

[Jon Tofte]

I am with Rich on the gas problem.

Looks like a lot of work, but the pickup effort was worth it to score some very nice parts if you wind up parting it. Those original black knobs and igniter cover alone are worth something.

Your plan sounds good to me. You can easily get square tubing, pick up some McMaster inserts and with a little drilling and assembly you will have a solid bottom frame. The rest is mostly hard cleaning, at least it looks that way to me. Don't spend a bunch on knobs. You can find something that will work and if you want to be adventurous spray paint them satin black with Krylon Fusion for plastic. It really does make a beautiful restoration of the knobs. Don't have track record to confirm long term how they hold up. Black knobs would tie it in with the black handle and trim it still has. I bet if you are patient you can find another cheap (free?) donor grill to get a lot of those parts. If it all comes out really nice you and your friend can consider the merits of higher grade grates and flavorizers.

Have fun and let us see how it goes!

 

[DaveW]

I think Rich is right. I presume you have a working LP grill ? If so, disconnect it's regulator hose from the manifold and swap it onto this one. Then try to fire it up. That might nail down the problem.


That said, given all that needs to be done, I don't know that I'd mess with it. Use it as a parts grill and find another candidate for your friend. Reason for saying that is that the cummulative cost of all the parts you'll need to replace would seem to make this an upside down situation. It would be different if you had parts laying around, and perhaps some scrap wood to make a bottom pan out of.

I don't know how far away Brookline is from you, but there's a very nice looking Silver C for $100 there. https://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/hsh/d/weber-grill-with-extra-burner/6699398492.html

 

[Ryan RS in Mass]

All - having just found yet another 1000 for cheap money, I decided to just make this a parts grill as you all suggested.

I haven't started stripping it for parts yet, but I am going to this week, then get rid of what is left.

I thought my friend wanted this particular style of grill, but it turns out he is just interested in a good, refurbished 3 burner, so I'll either finish my Green 1000 for him or find another Silver B.