I never do as they recommend when putting things together. The instructions always say, to lay everything out and make sure you have all the pieces. It has never mattered, until today, kind of. I cut the box as the instructions said at the corners and took off. It was a little rough at first, Boy was making tamales for his trip next week and Javalina sleeps until around 3:00pm. It was probably 10:00am when I started putting it together. Good thing DD came out of the room just then and offered to help me. We put it together much faster than I could alone as he doesn't have old man knees and can work down low. It all went great until the very last part which is a little handle to operate the open and close mechanism to change the grill from smoke to sear. It basically turns a disk inside with holes and when it is on smoke, the holes are misaligned, so the fire stays below, but when turned to sear, the holes line up and the fire can get to the upper part of the grill and almost makes the grill center start glowing red.
I didn't want to accept this, as I frantically went through the mess of styrofoam and torn cardboard, but could not find the part. Sweetie was there and said "well, if the pieces aren't there, generally, you put things back in the box and return it to the store for another one." She was half joking because it took a good hour and at more than 250 pounds, I am not taking it back for a dinky little handle. I started thinking of how I could get around this. I found a joint knife which you use to smear spackle on a wall and I thought I could cut it and drill some holes to make it work. Just as I was starting to align it and deciding if the Dremel will cut it cleanly, Wife came down, got all mad because the part was missing, insisted I call the 800 number and get it sent to me for free. I called the number, but they are closed Sunday. I then went on the company website and they have a section for parts. I had to go through a bunch of random parts and there aren't images for most of them, but eventually I found the part. I told Wife that if it was an expensive part, I would call and get it sent to me or threaten to return the whole thing, but if it was like $10, I would just order it. It listed for only $4.99, so I ordered it immediately. I felt better when it asked for the model number of my grill and it said the part matched the grill. I did have to add another $4.99 for Fed Ex shipping, but it was still under $10.
I can wait a couple of days to get the part, we won't be grilling until next weekend, when it is my birthday and we are supposed to try some nice steaks on there, DD wants to try some ribs, plus we do have a big Texas sized brisket in the freezer which could be fun to try. I saw some guy on Youtube using the same grill cook a brisket over 9 hours (video was 12 minutes) and it looked like the real deal, so I am excited about the possibilities. My point though was I think it is pretty cool with the internet to go and look for and order parts like I was able to do. If anything breaks down the line, I can order new parts for it, and at over $600, this grill needs to provide many years of service.
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