So a while back Troy said he had a buddy with an old Chestnut in his barn. After some negotiations the owner decided to sell it and I was very happy to get it. It was in nice shape, it was very dirty but it could I could see the diamond in the rough. I got this well over a year ago but I finally got around to getting it back to the shape it deserved.
Here it is when I picked it up in April of 2013, dusty, dirty, handle roached....
Here it was last fall in my group shot, it the second row
Fast forward to last week, here it is in the refurbish stash
It was covered in this crusted on crud
Inside crusted with grime and grease
Lid full of grease and cob webs
Vent wheel frozen and packed with crud
Bottom vents frozen
Cracked out my vintage lawn chair, vintage TV tray and my mobile grill cleaning cart. This is my usual set up for cleaning grills. I set the grill in the trash can and it keeps it stable while scrubbing. There is usually a small speaker and a coke zero as well.....
Legs off
Set up on the trash can ready for cleaning
Crud crud and more crud!
Triangle rusty
LEgs and triangle polished up
Here she is all assembled
My goal with this grill was not to polish it all up like new, but take what was there and try to clean it up. If some pitting remained that was okay. I wanted to make a looker/cooker. I got most of the pitting off the bottom vents and cracked them free. I realized I didn't take pictures of them and it's now dark outside so I'll take some more tomorrow and post them. I saved the thumbscrews and the wheel caps. I must admit I used a set of donor wheels so they looked a little better. I ran out of my evaporust, so I ordered more, and I will put back the original wheels once they soak a while. So here it is in all it's glory. This is one of my favorites I own. I'll prob cook on it next week.....
New handle replaced with a fresh one.
Needless to say the two inspectors showed up, Lucy and Phoebe.....
NO more crud
More pics when I fire it up. I'll get a few more of the inside so you can see the nice clean gray color
This was a long time coming, I'm so glad it's done and I can start to use it.......