Genny Jr. Redhead build - two Redheads into one -- make that 2 reds and a grey

[DrewZ]

For some reason, I've always had a thing for the oddly-proportioned Genesis Jr.  Bizarrely, they reminded me of the mini-walkers from Return of the Jedi:



This week, FB Marketplace revealed two lovely redheads in my area -- a propane Genny Jr. and a full-size Genny natural gasser: 





I picked them both up yesterday for $75 (with some disassembly, they both fit in my wife's CX-5 with plenty of room to spare).  For now, I've got them both disassembled.  I plan on cannibalizing the full-size Genny as much as possible to put Junior back together.  I was pretty pessimistic about Junior's condition from the FB photos -- all the wood was either seriously rotted or gone, the two lower crossmembers were rusted and disconnected and there were no pictures of the interior.  Thankfully, the worst bits were pictured.  Under the hood, the grates, flavorizer bars and burner tubes were all in pretty good shape.  (The full-sizer had the opposite problem -- it's best bits were pictured; the rest--meh.)

Anyways, I'll post progress here as progress occurs. 

[Kneab]

Looking forward to seeing these restored. Once you do one it's going to be hard not to do the other. I had the same plan. Now I have one of each myself

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[DrewZ]

Looking forward to seeing these restored. Once you do one it's going to be hard not to do the other. I had the same plan. Now I have one of each myself

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Guilty as charged -- notwithstanding yesterday's haul, I've already bookmarked three other gassers as potential parts donors . . . They should really call this the "Weber Enablers Club"

[JEBIV]

I would love a Jr. I think they are cool looking too !

[Kneab]

Enablers here?

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[Bob BQ]

I would love a Jr. I think they are cool looking too !

If the Chicago meetup is still on, we can make that happen...


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[DrewZ]

I found a buyer for the 3000 lid and some other bits to ward off the temptation of rehabbing two grills at once.

After further disassembly on the Junior, I think I'm going to do an "8/10-restore-to-solid-cooker" job on it.  Structurally solid.  Cleaned, but not sand-blasted.  Functions like new -- but perhaps with a twist . . .



Everything came apart pretty easily.  The only major rust issues are on the lower parts of the frame (pictured with 3000 frame).





I plan on using the left leg assembly from the 3000 with casters and cutting down the cross-pieces from the 3000 rather than trying to cut/patch the Junior's rust.  I can move the 3000's left leg's slider bar to the right side for the fold-down shelf.

While I was at it, I test-fit the 3000's NG manifold onto the Junior's cookbox with the Junior's burners.





Since it looks like a nice clean fit, I'm leaning toward cutting a third-burner hole in the Junior's cookbox, and using the 3000's 3-burner NG Manifold.  I have the fair-condition center burner from the 3000 so I can test the cut-and-crimp method to shorten the burner to the correct length.  Maybe a step bit, followed by an angle grinder to put the third burner hole in the firebox?  I have the 3000's firebox to practice on.  3-burner Junior?  hmmmm

[JEBIV]

sweet, a 3 burner Jr would be hot LOL

[DrewZ]

Cleaned the Junior's grates and the cast iron grates from the 3000.  The stock grates have some rust on the bottom but are otherwise solid and clean enough to cook on.  The cast iron grates cleaned up nicely, but of course, need to be modified to fit the Junior.  Rather than cut both cast iron grates, I decided to cut one in half with the angle grinder.  Sizewise, it worked out pretty nicely.



Progress not pictured: started cleaning the firebox and the lid sides; cleaned and painted the lid bolts; cleaned the axle; cleaned both drip pans; and sorted and labeled the new SS McMaster hardware.



. . .

I did a mockup with the black durawood that I harvested from a freebie.  The swing table arm is one I fabricated from hard brake line and seems stable enough to support a reasonable amount of weight.  The lower shelves could use one or two more slats, but aren't an awful fit as-is.



With the hood


I haven't given up on the possible 3-burner conversion, so I wanted to see how the 3000 control panel would fit:


It will require some modification to the top shelf and some modification to the support bracket.  I cut the igniter support off of the donor 3000 frame and temporarily wedged it into the Junior's frame:




Leaving the existing control panel support in place allows the tank scale panel to line up with the lower support.

While I had the angle grinder out, I modified the spit rod from my kettle's rotisserie to fit the Junior's cookbox.  Not terribly elegant, but it is functional.



Progress not pictured:  Cutting a notch in the side table slider to use a left slider on the right side; Picking up freebie propane tank.

. . .

[DrewZ]

Crossed the Rubicon.  Firebox is now prepared to accept a third burner.  Used a 1 1/8" spade bit for the initial hole, then reshaped with the angle grinder.  Not the cleanest, but it will work.





. . .

More progress over the weekend.  Got pretty much everything that needs to be painted prepped for painting on Sunday.  Yesterday turned out to be good painting weather, so I got some preliminary coats down on the frame, z bars, firebox and sides.  The lower shelf z bars that came with the black durawood freebie were pretty badly rusted, so I decided to cut and use the 3000's z bars, and go with 13 slats on the lower shelf (9 on one, 4 on the other). 

Cut z bars:


This also gave me the makings of the shorter right side shelf to accommodate the 3000's control panel.  I can go with 4 wide-spaced slats or 5- closely-spaced slats.  I'm leaning toward the latter.  13 slats on the lower shelf, plus 6 slats on the sliding shelf, plus 5 slats on the right shelf = 24 slats of black durawood.  And I have exactly 24 slats of black durawood.




. . .

Did something yesterday that I haven't done since the mid-90's -- bought propane.  Our house came with an old crusty pedestal grill hooked up to the natural gas line.  It worked, so we kept it until the mid-aughts when we got our S-320 natural gasser, which is still going strong despite the usual lower body rust.

Anyways, I picked up a freebie curbside propane tank last week.  It was pretty rusty and ugly, so I exchanged it yesterday for a nice clean full tank while at Lowe's.  If all goes well, I should be on track to fire it up some time over the July 4 weekend.

. . .

Started today by taking the remains of the 3000 to the county scrap metal recycling place.  As much as I've enjoyed working on the Junior, I don't think I'm going to make gasser rehabs a habit.  I started to work down the punchlist on the Junior, but I had to interrupt to run out and get something:



A brand new blue performer bowl and lid popped up on FB marketplace, so I popped it into my SSP frame in place of the Crate & Barrel green that I had popped in last year to replace the custom Red Limited Edition that I had popped in the year before to replace the original black bowl.  Great timing for a blue to arrive with a red soon to be finished . . .

First bolt into the Junior's frame.  Super Corrosion Resistant 316 stainless from McMaster-Carr.


Partially assembled



The thermometer is new--it's from the Performer bowl I picked up today.  (Yes, I painted the side bolts with red caliper paint.)  I'm optimistic that I can get it up and running tomorrow.

[DrewZ]

We have ignition

https://youtu.be/l1dRV9oCztg

[Kneab]

Drew I am curious to see what the top temperature will be with this setup. My unmodified Jr. hits 550 with 2 burners on high. What will the 3 burner Jr. do? 700?

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[DrewZ]

Drew I am curious to see what the top temperature will be with this setup. My unmodified Jr. hits 550 with 2 burners on high. What will the 3 burner Jr. do? 700?

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I'll have some more info on that later today.   

[DrewZ]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, is a video worth a thousand pictures?  Does that make a video worth a million words?  I hope so, because I just didn't have the energy last night to do a proper summary of yesterday's work . . .

The day began with installing the black durawood slats in the z bars.  The bottom shelf has one 9-slat rack from the 3000 and a 4-slat rack cut from the 3000's other 9-slat rack.  (Not pictured: cutting, shaping and re-drilling the remaining 5-slat remnants to create the top right shelf)


Looks fairly complete, no?  NO.  Lesson #472: It's relatively quick and easy to make it look like a grill; it's another thing entirely to make it work like a grill . . .

So, a valve cleaning was in order.


Then, a combination of a C clamp, 3lb hammer, angle grinder and foul language to modify the 3000's center burner.



After looking at the first picture, I wasn't happy with the apparent gap at the end of the tube, so I took it back out and spent considerably more time trying to whack the thing shut.  I tested it by covering all of the burner holes with duct tape and shooting water through the tube from a hose. Then a little break for beauty pageant . . .



Then onto the control panel and the actual functional bits.  Clearly the control panel needed some cosmetic help.


With a little hard work (and buying a new panel off of Offerup ), it now looks like this . . .


Then onto the manifold and panel support.  The 1000's manifold brackets mount directly to the Jr.'s firebox and manifold support with no modification.  I had previously cut the igniter bracket from the 3000.  It's now installed with just a nice, tight compression fit.  I may revisit to add some kind of L-bracket if necessary.  One of the choices created by going to a 3-burner setup was what to do about the igniter.  The Jr.'s igniter is mounted vertically on the front, directly underneath the control panel.  The igniter panel also functions as a trim panel to cover the gap between the firebox and the right leg.  I harvested the corresponding trim panel from the 1000.  I'm not sure whether I'm just going to modify the plain trim panel from the 1000, or use the Jr.'s panel -- perhaps with an S-hook coming out of the unused igniter hole.


Once all the guts were in place, I did a flame test.  Initially, the center burner only had flame at the crossover tube end, which made me think that maybe I didn't get the end sealed as well as I thought I did.  Thankfully, an adjustment to the shutter fixed the issue.


So, now what?  I'm not entirely happy with the top right shelf, so I'll probably dicker around with that to get the spacing the way I want.  I still need to install the tank scale and figure out what to do about the front trim panel . . . and I guess I'll need to actually cook on it too.  There will be pictures.

[DrewZ]

Worked through some of my final punchlist and got ready for a cook.


Reverse sear london broil, starting with front burner only


After about 20 minutes, the meat was up to 120ish, so it was time to crank it up.  All burners on high.


Four (4) minutes later:



So, yeah.  It will sear.