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=4089600I 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.