The Big Adventure For A Genesis Jr


 
Kelly C

Kelly C

TVWBB Pro
I have admired the Genesis Junior from afar for a long time and rarely see them up for sale. I finally saw one advertised on Saturday three hours away. Talked with the wife and she said let’s go tomorrow morning early and it will be “Kelly and Robyn’s Big Adventure”. It was the first (and maybe the last) time she went with me to pick up a grill. Here is why:
- 6 hour round trip took 11 hours
- had a tire blowout at 70 mph after 5 hours
- spare tire mechanism was stuck; couldn’t lower the spare tire to change it myself.
- tow truck bill was $110
- new truck tire was $170

The Big Adventure cost $500 when adding in gas, food and of course the grill. It needs food grates, all 13 flavorizer bars, temp gauge and the right swing table. Let me know if you have any of these parts to sell or if you have suggestions on where to get good ones. This will be our daily driver when completely redone.

Glad we made it home safe. A trip we will not forget. Wife is now calling it “that damn grill”. Here it is along with some unplanned moments and damage.

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Congrats and welcome to the Junior Club! I'll be doing my spring cleaning/inventory soon, and I'll see if I have anything for you.
 
Oh man! Well I am glad you all (and that cursed grill) made it home safely! I was driving on a grill adventure a week and a half ago going 70 on I-70 only to have my transmission axle seal blow out and almost immediate loss of being able to move. My wife came and rescued me, we went out to eat and paid for the wrecker service. I hadn't even made it to pick up my grills. I am just glad my wife didn't want to come along with me!
 
Sometimes you get way more adventure than you bargained for. At least a dent in your wallet but no major disaster.
I used to make those 300 mile go get the grill trips, but gave it up just to much time and money for flipping grills.
Make sure to post some pictures when you get the little guy finished.
 
Parts are going to be really tough to find. There were not a lot of those made and most of the parts are unique to that grill. Then the fact that NO ONE makes parts for them any longer and combine that with the popularity of the grills, there just are not a lot of spare parts available, new or used. Hopefully, you can find someone on here that has some of the parts you need.
That thing has to be restored now, after all you went through to get it.
 
Kelly, welcome to the Junior Club. So sorry to hear about your hunting trip. As far as my opinion on parts, you can "steel" yourself for the following:
  • As far as the flavorizer bars and grill grates, all you'll need is a sharp metal-cutting saw to trim otherwise Gen 1000 parts to fit.
  • The hard part is the burner tubes. Those two you will have to fab yourself or take to a shop.
  • "RC planebuyer" has hooked a few people up by 'fabbing Junior tubes. They won't be cheap so get top quality SS tubes to start.
  • Hardware and swing table should be easy to find on the forum, check the buy sell trade forum.
You may want to check JeffMA's Junior thread here (and photo below on how RC made his tubes). All I have left on mine is the woodwork and we'll be rolling it out this summer!

Hope this helps

Finished tubes.jpg
 
Congrats on your Jr! I put Grill Grates in mine and love them! R/C Planebuyer is another option as others have said, I hadn't thought of Gen 1000 stuff. The guy that I got mine from had shortend the burner tubes and made new flavorizer bars out of stainless steel.
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Mission accomplished, despite all the drama...got the grill and a new tire to boot! Congrats, Kelly!
 
The cooking grates on the Jr. are the same size front to back as the ones for the regular Genesis 1-5, x000. You can cut the Genesis ones down to size to fit. That is easiest with stainless rod grates, or even the original stamped steel, but another member here used cast iron from an older Genesis. It came out very well.
 
Kelly,
First off welcome to the Junior Club.
Sorry to hear how your "adventure" turned out. When the JR is all finished you'll have a story that, hopefully you and the Wife will look back on and laugh.
As you have heard the Junior is though to find parts for it is not impossible. My burner tubes as well as the 11 Flavorizer bars were done by the skilled hands of David Santana aka rcplanebuyer.

The grates can use standard 1000-5000 series grates, just cut down to fit the narrower JR cook box.

You can use any side shelf off the earlier Genesis' just also cut down a bit. See here on my Junior for reference.

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Like Tony had stated above check out my post on my semi-restored Junior.

Any questions feel feel to ask.

Jeff
 
Kelly,
One thing I can help you with is the decal for the igniter cover. It is not clear to me whether all the Jr. grills had this decal or whether it was a later add-on. I worked hard to replicate it, though, so if you (or anyone) need one PM me. I also have the narrow old-style fuel tank level decal. At least some Jr. grills had that rather than the later, well known one with the row of gray stripes that go from wide to narrow.

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Jon Tofte said:
The cooking grates on the Jr. are the same size front to back as the ones for the regular Genesis 1-5, x000. You can cut the Genesis ones down to size to fit. That is easiest with stainless rod grates, or even the original stamped steel, but another member here used cast iron from an older Genesis. It came out very well.
Click to expand...

I cut down CI grates from a 1000 to fit my Junior. Instead of cutting both CI grates to make them identical to the Junior grates, I kept one whole and cut the other in half.

Grate Mod

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Ok thanks and thanks to everyone for the information so far. How well has the JR performed for those that have or had one? Heat up quick? I realize it is a two burner with a deep box and two rows of flavorizer bars. Any concerns or issues with how they perform?
 
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