Red 900

[addicted-to-smoke]

So this is a thread in progress. No real pics yet.

I mentioned this recently in Online Finds here, as being a Genesis. So I picked it up and it's not a Genesis, but it's RED and the red is fantastic shape. It's an almost-Genesis, i.e. a "900" confirmed by Weber CS. It's an EZ code ('98.)

CI grates and Flavorizers have a lot of life left in them, and it came with a full tank of gas.

It came with a Weber cover (a bit worn) and a Weber rotisserie spit and tines (same as for the kettle, with counterweight), Motor says Jakel, made in USA. Currently having trouble removing the motor's bracket from the cook box. Screws rusted.

Here are the differences I could detect compared to the regular 1000-series (Genesis):

*  shallower cook box, accommodating only 5 horizontal Flavorizer bars instead of a zillion. Really happy to not have to replace a quadrillion Flavorizers let me tell you ... but it has the Genesis' taller lid, unlike the model "700."

*  metal shelves (painted gray on mine, not black as some are?) instead of "Durawood" down below

*  longer right-side frame legs (no office chair wheels there)

*  lacks the two warming racks but can accommodate them. These appear to be available separately as # 7513 and # 7514. My Ace has them for $13 each. I imagine you could cook on them too.




It lights on the first push but I'll replace the igniter since part of the wind shield is missing (!)




Ah, nice blue flame all around!




Next up: some basic cleanup

[Travis]

@addicted-to-smoke Good start man. What am I looking at in the middle picture? Is that the wind shield over the igniter? This is your first gasser, right? If so, what made you pull the trigger? I'm kicking the idea around also for the weeknight meal factor. Tfs!

[addicted-to-smoke]

@Travis yes that's the wind shield over the igniter. Luckily they have extra gas orifaces right there (see the ones up on the top of the tube on that end?) so that theres plenty of gas to catch the spark.



I have an older thread asking about the taste of food cooked on gas, that was my first concern. I have another thread about the Q300 I bought and upgraded. I have another offering to sell the Q, which I still have now want even more to sell. This one just has more potential!

Gas opens up the possibility others will cook outside. My wife has never done so but claims to prefer have a gasser around "just in case" and let's face it, they work pretty much like a stovetop range ... my little girl uses the Q to cook frozen pizza rolls all by herself. Do they taste as good as when cooked with charcoal? Nope, not at all but that's not the point for her.

Also, I have a red Performer, this will be it's utility mate. Also, for me, the first 20 yrs of Weber gassers are as iconic as the kettles for design IMO, and so I want a piece of that. I also really dig the crazy fact that there are gas grills out there still running, something that non-Weber owners just don't understand. I saw two dudes checking out at HD, a 4-burner "Nexgrill" or whatever Brinkmann has become. $200 for that flimsy junk they'll throw away in 2 years.

Have no clue how much I'll use it or when, I just know I've wanted something like it for awhile.

I can't yet comment on the frequently-cited "weekday cook" usage of a gasser since I'm out of work. I suspect I'd still light charcoal, even then, unless super pressed for time and "just" wanted something like a steak, which IMO doesn't "need" to be cooked on charcoal to be great. Another good usage might be for say, bacon so that splatter is kept out of the kitchen but the meat isn't going to pick up "charcoal flavor" anyway, like fish, chicken, pork, beef roasts, veggies and so on would on the kettle.

I don't have this thing fully taken apart yet and I can see why they cost so much. Lots of screws and parts everywhere. Geesh!

[Travis]

@addicted-to-smoke Thanks for the info. Yeah, I've never had a gasser before, but when I'm working days it would be more convenient and you brought up a good point about the potential for others to use one instead of a kettle.
Hope it works out great. I'm kind of watching your project to get tips and see if I'm going to take on my own. Plus I like the look of the old ones better. Ah, who am I kidding. I know I'll pull the trigger someday!

[addicted-to-smoke]

Posting some random pictures on a rainy day while I figure out my next move. The wounded igniter came out without drama.

Next, I wanted the cook box out. There's one bolt/nut at the left side that secures the cook box to the frame. But mostly it's gravity that holds it in place.

The nut inside was gone from rust.




The angle grinder took care of the leftover bolt stub but unfortunately also removed a little of a Flavorizer groove. Oops.




What's left of the bolt:




Manifold wing nuts and bolts are apparently stainless steel. Not sure why they're so special ... I can think of other hardware that would also benefit from SS material, but oh well.




Spiderweb protectors will get cleaned, soaked.




Manifold orifaces will get cleaned.




Rotisserie bracket bolts. I'd soaked the nuts but everything here still spins. I pinched the bolt with locking pliers, but they wouldn't hold. Instead, the bolt began to deform. I'll have to cut them off and hope I can find some similar bolts later with slim heads if necessary. I'll try not to slice the cook box in half with the angle grinder. I do love me my angle grinder.




What bothers me more is that one of the two burner end screws is gone from rust. I'd have to drill it out to replace the burners some day, but want them out of my way NOW to clean up a little. I don't really care what the cook box looks like below the Flavorizers, so I may just leave it. In the manual, Weber states these screws are only for alignment; they aren't needed to secure the burner tubes necessarily.




*********
Armed with only the owner's manual I downloaded and some time this has been pretty easy to dig into. A 7/16" wrench handles most nuts, a 5/16 is for the burner tube screws (Philipps screwdriver could be used if the screws are not rusted). Oh, and an angle grinder.

[LightningBoldtz]

@addicted-to-smoke

The slots that the burner tubes go into are not supposed to come out, to get the tubes out you wiggle them back and forth.

[addicted-to-smoke]

Good to know, thanks!

[addicted-to-smoke]

I had to drill out the rusted screw that was holding in the burner assembly on one side. I wasn't initially going to bother removing the burners, but you know how it goes ... in for a penny, in for a pound. And, now I know how to do it. They look really good up close and only got a mild brush up after this picture was taken.




[The roti bracket bolts gave themselves up to the angle grinder.]


Random pic of outside cook box cleanup. I didn't take it all down to bare metal. My sanity was at stake. Also, I had a rattle can nearby that will hopefully cover up a lot of sins.




The underside of the steel rails that hold the large grease drip tray thing hide rust beneath them.




Wouldn't it be great if these were SS?



Tomorrow: some paint, some more cleanup etc.

[addicted-to-smoke]

Briefly considered buying bamboo cutting boards but found mixed reviews for most online, and if I spent $15+ each on them, only to have them split, I'd not be happy. I don't need to cut or prep food on them; they would just be a place to hold my beer or a food tray, right?

Also briefly considered using up some spare decking boards I have (like Trex, but a Lowe's brand, Veranda) but then I'd be cutting and the widths wouldn't be correct and so on.

So I sanded the originals, which looked better after hitting them with some 80 grit paper. This shows a comparison on a board with nasty gray paint still on part of it.




They are weathered and dark but solid. Unsanded on the right:




Done with sanding (I think.) Off to find something interesting that's oil based that will cover them well for the next 20 years?

[jkolantern]

Looks good so far.  Rustoleum high heat ultra for the outside of the cookbox.  Any pictures of the whole thing?  I'm pretty familiar with that generation of gassers (flipped about 30 of them) but not so much the names or the "almost" Genesis status.

[addicted-to-smoke]

Yeah the 900 is a regular 3-burner Genesis with a shallow cookbook and so only 5 flavorizers. Wire frame shelf down below instead of wood and no locking wheels. Also, it didn't come with both lid and grill warming racks. Although my downloaded owner's manual says it should have come with the grill warming rack. I think the cost savings, whatever it was at retail was probably pretty smart but I may decide otherwise if I get flareups from not having as many flavorizers.

I lost a few days traveling on the kids' Spring Break. I've "finished" (air quotes) the shelf boards and have reassembled most everything. I bought the extra-cost glossy BBQ grill spray can for the lid sides and cook box. The frame and shelf frames only got a wipe down.

According the '97 900 manual this is supposed to have a manifold bracket and does not, like so?: http://www.grillparts.com/weber/genesis.asp?product_id=4089600

I want to polish the knobs (they've grayed a bit, shouldn't they be white?) and paint their pointer lines. Or I might spend eBay money to get fresh ones. Curiously, none of the online merchants seem to have them; they only have later Genesis or earlier Summit knobs and they ain't exactly the same design as the early Genesis knobs this has.

I also managed to destroy the ignition button cover (it was brittle and didn't want to come out while cleaning) so that's another purchase. I replaced the igniter in order to gain a new collector shield, which by itself would have cost as much as the whole kit.

OMG the wood slats took a long time. After sanding and drying (no tack cloth, so I rinsed/rubbed them and they sat inside for a week) I stained with Minwax interior (water-based) custom mixed to their color "mandarin orange." I think they soaked up 3 coats of that. Then I did 2-3 coats of spar varnish. If it looks like generic redwood now, I won't disagree.

I screwed up the first spar coat and allowed it to drip. I had to sand so much off in spots that ... the stain came off. Re-stain. New spar. So there are some nasty rough spots I just said screw it. It's another "10ft. grill" --- looks great from 10ft. away. Not so much up close!

I need to fill some holes in the slats with wood filler as some of the screws (new SS) don't stay. And there's a ton of pressure on that first slat on the swing shelf that it doesn't sit perpendicular to the frame because of the side pressure the support rid exerts on it. I'm tempted to splooge some wood filler on each relevant screw, set it in and clamp it until dry ... I didn't/couldn't remove the end cap and so had to assemble the wood slats on the grill. This is of course for the swing shelf.

The seller included a Weber rotisserie which I intend to use. The CI grates look OK. More cruft than corrosion or rust so hopefully they'll clean OK. Eventually I want SS rods.

Here's a quick and dirty pic, with dust on the lid and the support rod holding the shelf in the down/away position.

[Travis]

lookin good brother! I like the stain choice for the slats.