UDS Grate Legs - Proof of Concept

As many UDS owners know, it can be a pain to swap out racks full of meat if you have a UDS with dual racks. Usually there is some tilting to get that second rack out because of the bolts that hold the top rack. So, I was inspired by another post/thread I saw (I apologize but I cannot find it off hand but please take credit if it was your idea) where somebody used bolts as legs under the rack. Thus, you only needed to support the bottom rack in the drum. When it came time to swap, you just lift the top one off, set on the ground (the legs provide clearance), and pull out the other rack. I liked the idea a lot but thought the bolts would be a little unsteady and they took up some real estate on the rack.

So, tooling around today I grabbed some 1/2" pipe I had laying around and cut off some sections. I cut 7' sections with the idea to keep 6" gap between the grates. I notched one end of the cut pipe with a cut off disk just deep enough to fit around the outside wire of the rack. On the other end of the pipe I notched it down about 1/2-3/4" and then spread it apart a bit to allow for easier stacking. At this point I did "cheat" a bit by welding them to the rack (still kinda ugly welds pre-cleanup in the pics). The legs aren't perfectly straight as the racks are actually slightly different sizes. But, as long as I keep them as a set they will work.

I also plan to attemt to do this with threaded steel in an effort to have a no-weld option for those interested that do not have a welder. I think you could just cut out the top deep enough to slide over the rack. Then just have a nut and washer on each side to hold it in place.

Oh yeah, pics...

Johnny_Crunch said:

easier said than done lining that up with smoke in your eye? that's my first thought.

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Very good point. I have not tried to cook with them yet. One thing to note though, one leg is at the "front" of the grate in between the grate rods (Last photo). If you place this one first the other two will pretty much land where they are supposed to. Also, in playing around with it I do not have to have it exactly in the same spot every time.

Norcoredneck said:

Hope they don't buckle the grills with a load of meat on them.

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Tis a good question. However, these supports are at least 4x the size/strength of the small SS bolts I have used in other builds (Norcoredneck spec builds :thumb. There will be more weight on the bottom grate but I have welded in reinforced supports in my new drum instead of just using bolts. I guess I will have to do a large cook here soon and see how it goes.

Rookie'48 said:

4 legs = better weight distribution
3 legs = less wobble

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Exactly the driving reason I did 3. I just threw this together this afternoon to see how it works. More precise measuring and the possible use of threading to level the grates would definitely invite the use of more supports.

I did a quick test with a 20lb bag of KF just to see how it reacted. There was some bowing but I think it was more a result of the cheap grates (Walmart mod) as I didn't to ruin good Weber grates. I got the same bowing effect from the bottom grate which sat on the 3 solid supports on the barrel.

I think I know how I want to proceed for the next revision. 4 posts using threaded steel slotted with room to allow adjustments with nuts. Above the grate a bit of the thread will be exposed. The bottom of the post will have a larger piece cored out to sit on the exposed theads the rack below like bigabyte suggested. Plus, this type of setup isnt permanent.