Today I picked up an older (2005) Weber Genesis Silver grill for $55 with a half full propane bottle. Only 10 miles from home also!
I just wanted something for quick n dirty grilling like burgers n dogs etc. My wife burns everything on the charcoal grill, so this is more for her!

It’s in decent shape. No rust holes. Burners are good. A couple of the heat shields over the burners have a couple thin spots so I’m going to order a new set of those.
All the plumbing and side burner works and the igniter works like it should.
It was real dirty and the paint was peeling off of the cast aluminum ends of the lid. The paint (porcelain/enamel?) in the lid was very oxidized. No dents in any of the stainless steel panels.

This is the before/beginning pics.

The shields over the burners.
Before and steer of the grill bars.
The coating on the cast iron cleaned up nicely.

JMB would approve.

Here is the lid before and after polishing it with rubbing compound and buffing it.
The shine and depth came right back. (The white zigzag in the before pic is rubbing compound)

Then I polished the stainless steel temp gauge in the lid.

The single side burner cover was badly heat stained and tarnished. So I stripped it back to a brushed finish.

I stripped the old flaky paint off with the wire wheel. Then I used some high heat BBQ black paint from ACE. It’s their store brand RustStop paint. I love their paint. It goes on great, never fish eyes, dries quickly and they are the tall cans.

I gave the stainless steel panels underneath on the cabinet a good buffing. Then I buffed out the paint on the control panel/directions also.

Then it was time to test it out. Bacon Burgers n dogs and some corn on the cob boiled on the side burner. Worked pretty good!

All done! Just a couple hours work can be pretty rewarding. About a $60 investment plus 2-3 hours time. Not bad for a 16 year old grill!

Sweet work!

Looks great! Makes me want to look for one.

2-3 hours? Holy crap, you transformed that thing!

Impressive, sir.

I guess we found our "Weber Guy".

Good job!!! Rehabbing a weber really isn't that hard, but sooooo worth the effort! Impressive job for not doing a total tear down too. Its usually easier to remove the fire box and lid side castings for painting, but thats much more involved and time consuming. Typically, you end up breaking the one bolt that holds the fire box to the frame on the left side --- for some reason, they ALWAYS rust solid and snap.

Go the extra step --- pop the Weber emblem off the lid - its held on by two speed nuts - and hit it with some 320 sandpaper on a flat surface to clean it up.

Hows the inside of the cabinet look? Sheet metal or rack bottom? The sheet metal ones tend to rust out badly due to bad drainage and people putting crap in there that holds water...
Good that the grates are in good condition - thats usually a deal breaker for me when I'm looking at grills. Do yourself a favor and DON"T do the 'turn it on HIGH and let it get to 700' thing for cleaning --- its best to heat to 350-400 and scrape the soft stuff off instead of cooking everything to char and scraping -- its also best to keep the cast grates wet with grease to keep them from rusting. Rotate and flip the grates from side to side once in a while to keep grease on the unused corners/edges. Nothing sadder that rusty cast grates....

So for $60 + paint + some effort you basically have a brand new grill that cost $800-900 brand new --- you can never feel bad about that --- and it will last you three lifetimes.