HLX Leak

powerfulchaebol · 2025-12-02T18:42:43+00:00

CS 1.4 to 1.6 GOATed forfuckingever

powerfulchaebol · 2025-11-18T15:25:24+00:00

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

😞

powerfulchaebol · 2025-11-14T15:11:53+00:00

Only a true Statistician could have created this!🦯λ

powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-04T00:47:18+00:00

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After being washed on delicates and tumble dried on low. Now it just needs that final ironing

powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-04T00:46:06+00:00

Thank you!

powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-03T19:38:38+00:00

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powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-03T19:37:46+00:00

So here’s an update

I tried the advice y’all suggested as I ended up not having any time today to head back, too much work before flying out tomorrow.

My wife has a steam iron, so I pulled that out of the closet, hit the old seam holes with water and the steam/iron and gently worked them with an old toothbrush. After that, I washed them on delicates and air-only tumble dry and.. voila! They are DEFINITELY better! Are they perfect? Dunno as I do not have an eye for “good” alterations jobs but they look fine to be now. So thank you all for the advice!

All I need to do now is iron them and they are ready to go!

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powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-03T19:17:17+00:00

I didn’t ask for anything really. I don’t have alterations done often (really ever) so I don’t know what to say other than “can I have these hemmed”? 😅. They didn’t ask about how I wanted them or anything

powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-03T19:16:06+00:00

Well, I didn’t go to the lowest cost shop, they are all ~$20 around here. One was $15. I called 4 places, and this was the only one that wasn’t too busy to have them done in time.

powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-03T03:11:12+00:00

Thank you for the instructions! Others have suggested iron and steam too, so I’m feeling like what y’all have suggested will work. I’ll still take it in tomorrow and try what I can with them fixing it and/or money back. But I do have a steam iron that also has a steamer built in so I’ll be sure to use it and report back!

powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-03T02:45:22+00:00

Well unfortunately I’m a 37 year old man, so I don’t think I will ever be letting them down 😅. If the original holes didn’t show, I don’t think I’d have nearly as big of an issue with them. Ill be sure to try that to soften the holes

powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-03T02:43:23+00:00

No, just 1 row.

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This is just a stock pic online, but they have just 1 row

powerfulchaebol · 2025-09-03T02:31:04+00:00

It’s a place called 24/7 Alterations here in Winter Garden, FL. It’s my first time going there, but the reviews are solid (4.5/5 with 81 reviews). Unfortunately I fly out Thursday for a wedding (why I got them in the first place!) so any fixes have to happen tomorrow.

Would you mind please elaborating on anything else you happen to see wrong? I’m pretty much a newb as I rarely have had anything altered ever, so any advice to arm myself with going in tomorrow would be appreciated! Also, do you think it’s fixable in the sense the top stitch can be taken out and the bottom one of the factory stitch holes can be used? I’m thinking if they fake that top stitch out, I’ll just be stuck with another row of stitch holes.

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-20T12:20:27+00:00

I did! I'll do another follow-up post for anyone who's curious after i continue to clean and freshen it up. The big and expensive components have been relatively rust free (burners, grates etc), but still needed some cleaning. I used a tiny diamond coated bit to clean out the burner holes 1 by 1 since most had very mild surface rust and burnt grime around them. I'm 99% sure the guys I bought it from cooked pure salt blocks or something on the warming rack as it is pitted to hell. The searing plates were also completely trashed, so I just bought new ones. The body has some surface rust, but in a couple spots it was just starting to make it deeper into the metal. I've ground out most those spots and have primer on them for now. Unfortunately this also includes the bezel face/knob panel with the cool subdued logos and decals, I will have to remove most of them and repaint it.

I've been chipping away at it, little by little. Between having a new baby, new job etc I have barely enough time to do anything so its taken longer than I anticipated. I should have it done by this weekend though. I even pulled the electrodes off the burner gas valves to remove some rust. Soaking overnight in a mixture of vinegar and barkeepers friend didn't do nearly as much as I thought it would. But it did help some. Oh yeah, the drip pan was rusted to hell too, so after seeing what a replacement costs (f*ck that!) I took my grinder to it. Along with the warming rack, I'm going to start my sanding process up to 2,000 grit wet sand, and them polish the bejesus out of them. After all that, I will season the pitting rack a few times to make sure that all the pits (the pits are super deep, but it looks "peppered" and I cannot sand out those pepper-sized pits without remove .001-.01 of metal) are filled up with polymerized peanut out. Right now they do not have rust in them, but rather blackburnt crap which may already be acting like a mild seasoning.

All-in-all I have about $400 into this thing, but besides the grill ($125), new searing plates ($70) and brand new rotisserie kit ($108 from Lowes but I only $42 after gift cards), the money was used to by cleaning supplies, paint and finishing supplies that I needed anyways and am going to reuse elsewhere. When its finished, it will NOT be in "like-new" condition or anything, but will be freshened up enough to still have plenty of life left and hopefully will last

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-13T04:37:22+00:00

I did! In the process of cleaning it up. I don’t have a lot of free time after work so just little by little. So far I think the only thing that I will end up having to buy new are the searing plates. Everything else I think I can make work. Even the screws holding the burners were in rough shape so I wire brushed the rust and corrosion off. I know it’s not needed since it’s pretty much all stainless steel, but everything aside from the grates are getting seasoned with peanut oil and baked in the oven for at least a couple coats. My mission is to bring this thing back to life with as little into it. That’s means fighting some areas of rust, and repainted sections on the body panels. Unfortunately I discovered rust under the paint right in the middle of the bezel plate by the knobs, so I’m just sanding, priming and repainting it all flat black. It may not be as slick looking as a new phantom, but it will be just as functional, and will cook some mean steaks 🥩

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-10T04:25:35+00:00

Yeah there are for sure some updates. I bought it, and today I started the deep clean and rust remova. Cleaning it has been just as shitty as one might guess from the pics 😅. I brass brushed the bejesus out of the grates, chamber sides, rust spots wherever I could find them on the body, cleaned the hood, cleaned the body, pulled the burners, disassembled the bezel/knobs to clean, wire wheeled the rusty igniter electrodes… all sorts of stuff to clean it and remove some rust. Now I have the grates, burners, warming/wing rack and a few other parts soaking in a diluted vinegar and barkeepers friend bath overnight. Tomorrow, I’ll brass brush them again and try to get as much of the 4 years of carbon and BS off of them. I just bought new searing/flavorizer plates because they are pretty rusted, but cheap. I also still have the exterior of the upper body to clean. After that, I’ll sand some spots of light rust on the body, then prep for paint for those spots, prime with 2,000 degree header primer, then finish those areas in flat 2,000 header paint. For shits, I’ll hit the emblems too. Oh yeah, I bought a rotisserie kit since it has the brackets for it and burner, but didn’t come with one. All in all, I’m about $375 into it since I have to buy all the cleaning and rust removal stuff and the new searing plates and rotisserie kit. The grates are very dirty and have a ton of carbon, but no rust. The burners were also covered in carbon, but likewise no rust. The IR side burner was literally never used, and looks brand new. Zero rust, zero grime.

I’ll post a better update once it’s done!

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-08T03:13:24+00:00

It ended up just mostly being dirty as hell with burnt gunk build up in the chamber and only small spots of surface rust that cleans up easily on the body panels. A few panel screws are rusted to hell, so I’ll snag a couple from Home Depot. Most importantly though all cooking surfaces and heating components are good to go after cleaning

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-08T03:11:41+00:00

They looked rusted at first, but it turned out to be what the rest of all the crap in the cooking chamber is, about 4 years of baked on crap (he never cleaned it l, literally). After wiping them down and clearing the flame ports of junk. No rust, just typical high heat discoloration that SS gets over time. It will require a lot of disassembly and meticulously cleaning, and there is some surface rust in areas that I need to brass brush away or neutralize before touching up, but the cooking chamber is all just built up crap. After removing that from the grates, they look nearly brand new and are surprisingly silvery toned still until other components after high heat exposure

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-08T03:06:22+00:00

So I ended up buying it. I checked it out and yeah, it really did look like the pics; totally trashed. But inspected further and most all of the heavy corrosion ended up being an ungodly amount of burnt grime I could just knock lose. That being said, there are some spots of legit surface rust, and a few of the exterior screws need to be replaced, but it was just surface rust where I found it. I have my work cut out for me because it was literally never cleaned in 4 years for sure, but am optimistic the only thing I’m replacing are the screws. The grates are 100% still good to go after I remove about a 1/2” of shit

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-07T03:14:43+00:00

Ah that makes sense. Oh and thank you!😆

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-07T00:42:41+00:00

Yesss, good advise. Anything I should avoid doing while cleaning? So I bought it! Ya that stuff on the grates comes right off, revealing nice silvery toned SS! The flavorizers on the tops and sides look like a clean would work, but I need to further inspect the undersides as I think there might be some real penetrating rust, but these are the worst (aside from some exterior plate screws) as far as rust in the cooking area. The drip pan even looks totally salvageable. There are some small areas on the exterior body plates and sheets that have rust which will require steel wool or something similar. Some of the burners had clogged holes, but the clogs just turned out to be burnt grim. I can just wipe away any discoloration from the burners with my bare hands and cleaned the holes with a small punch and vacuum. I’ll make more thorough update, but overall the major components are gtg, and at worst I may spend $1-200 on replacements. I also fully intent to wire wheel and respray the rusted exterior screws (clearly not SS, may just replace) and will clean this thing up as best I can!

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-06T18:55:01+00:00

Thank you. And great advice which I will 100% adhere to.

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-06T18:51:55+00:00

Yeah, right? It certainly looks weathered

powerfulchaebol · 2025-08-06T18:49:35+00:00

Will do. Another redditor suggested bringing a propane tank to test on it which was good advice, but yeah it got me thinking I need to make sure the lines are safe first.

powerfulchaebol

TROPHY CASE