Tom - Calgary
New member
Hey everyone,
I wanted to share the end result of the previous 2 weeks or so worth of work that I've put into my Spirit 500. The quality and amount of knowledge on this forum is fantastic and many of your guides helped me to fix up my Weber into something I'm proud of. My goal was to polish up the grill and replace the guts without spending too much money on it. After sourcing a few tools and picking up the majority of replacement parts online, I was able to keep things in the mid-$200 range which I'm happy about!
I picked up this bbq 4 years ago for $50 not really knowing the potential this thing had. It needed a real good cleaning, but I scrubbed it down and it has served me as my daily grill since. Overall, it's in great condition for its age. The frame had some tiny surface rust on the welds here or there, but all it required was a good degreasing and scrub down to shine it up.
The plastic handle and side shelf were showing some wear and were quite ugly in my opinion. I replaced the them with cedar slats, using the method Stefan mentioned of ditching the metal z-bars in favour of the wood cross members . I don't have much experience with woodworking other than shop class in junior high, but I did my research and had a lot of fun going through the cutting, sanding, staining, and urethane process. The end result was very rewarding!
I gave the inside of the firebox and lid a real good scrape down and repainted the firebox exterior and lid caps, while also giving the emblem a nice touch up. The ignition module needed a replacement, which was an easier fix than I had expected. I also cleaned and greased the valves to get them silky smooth....something I didn't think of doing initially, but I saw the tutorial on the forum and I'm glad I did!
The burners had some rust holes in them, bars were rusted out, and the grates had what looked to be little gouges in certain areas. I replaced them all with new stainless steel components (skipped out on the RC-quality stuff for the time being, but I might upgrade in the future) and have some steaks ready rock for tomorrow!
Overall, I enjoyed the process immensely and am super excited to get grilling and keep this Weber for many years to come!
Before pics:
After pics:
I wanted to share the end result of the previous 2 weeks or so worth of work that I've put into my Spirit 500. The quality and amount of knowledge on this forum is fantastic and many of your guides helped me to fix up my Weber into something I'm proud of. My goal was to polish up the grill and replace the guts without spending too much money on it. After sourcing a few tools and picking up the majority of replacement parts online, I was able to keep things in the mid-$200 range which I'm happy about!
I picked up this bbq 4 years ago for $50 not really knowing the potential this thing had. It needed a real good cleaning, but I scrubbed it down and it has served me as my daily grill since. Overall, it's in great condition for its age. The frame had some tiny surface rust on the welds here or there, but all it required was a good degreasing and scrub down to shine it up.
The plastic handle and side shelf were showing some wear and were quite ugly in my opinion. I replaced the them with cedar slats, using the method Stefan mentioned of ditching the metal z-bars in favour of the wood cross members . I don't have much experience with woodworking other than shop class in junior high, but I did my research and had a lot of fun going through the cutting, sanding, staining, and urethane process. The end result was very rewarding!
I gave the inside of the firebox and lid a real good scrape down and repainted the firebox exterior and lid caps, while also giving the emblem a nice touch up. The ignition module needed a replacement, which was an easier fix than I had expected. I also cleaned and greased the valves to get them silky smooth....something I didn't think of doing initially, but I saw the tutorial on the forum and I'm glad I did!
The burners had some rust holes in them, bars were rusted out, and the grates had what looked to be little gouges in certain areas. I replaced them all with new stainless steel components (skipped out on the RC-quality stuff for the time being, but I might upgrade in the future) and have some steaks ready rock for tomorrow!
Overall, I enjoyed the process immensely and am super excited to get grilling and keep this Weber for many years to come!
Before pics:
After pics:
