Outdoor Grill Repair · Models
The earlier Viking outdoor grills: T-Series and E-Series
An earlier Viking grill announces itself by sound. Light one and you get a click and a spark at the tip, never the silent glow of a 5 Series. The part names move with the generation — flavor generator plates rather than briquette trays, TruSear rather than ProSear. Tell Viking Repair Experts Los Angeles on (213) 600-7131 what yours does, and the right part gets ordered.
- Series
- Viking Outdoor Gas Grills, T-Series and E-Series
- Ignition
- T-Series: a 9 V battery behind the control panel and an ignition button for each burner. E-Series: mains-fed, the knob being gas valve and switch at once, and a burner re-ignites on its own.
- Gas
- Natural gas or propane, as the grill was supplied. On a Viking grill a change of fuel is a kit and a qualified technician, never an adjustment.
Where the rating plate is on this one
- Under the drip tray, rear left corner, beside the inlet pipe. That is where Viking’s own use-and-care manual for these grills sends you for the model and serial.
- If the plate has gone, the grill still tells you which it is: ignition buttons beside the knobs make it a T-Series, lights inside the canopy an E-Series.
What comes in on this generation
- An ignition button that clicks on every press while the burner beside it stays dark.
- One burner that will not catch when the others do, which puts the ignitor tip and the battery first in line.
- Flavor generator plates carrying enough baked deposit that flare-ups have become the way the grill behaves.
- Plates refitted with the flash tube covered, which is Viking’s own definition of a plate fitted wrongly.
- A rotisserie burner that drops out the moment the knob is released.
T-Series or E-Series
A T-Series has buttons. Every burner gets its own electronic ignition button beside the knobs, and what feeds them is a 9 V battery behind the control panel — one on the 30-inch grills, two on everything wider, with the positions marked on the panel itself.
An E-Series has none. Its knob is gas valve and electric switch at once, so a burner lights at any ON position, and the automatic re-ignition system brings it back if the flame is blown out while gas is still flowing. The other giveaway is overhead: halogen lights inside the canopy, on their own switch.
Both click. Where an E-Series makes no sound at all, Viking sends you to the plug and the breaker before anything on the gas side is touched.
Where the names changed
The searing burner here is TruSear. On the 5 Series it is ProSear. The layer over the flame is a set of stainless flavor generator plates here, and ceramic briquettes in trays there. None of the newer words is a synonym, and a part ordered under one of them for a grill built around the other is not the part that goes in.
Putting the plates back has a rule worth knowing before the frame is loaded: the rear tabs drop into slots on the back panel, the front tabs come down on the grill frame, and the flash tube has to stay reachable through them. Viking’s own line is that plates covering the flash tube are plates that are not properly installed.
What is still worth doing
These grills were built to come apart, and most of what fails is one of the parts that does. Grates lift out. Plates lift out. A burner unclips from the holding tab at the rear and comes off its mounting bracket at the front. The rotisserie motor is held by thumbscrews into brackets, its drive shaft meeting a gearbox on the side of the grill. The battery sits under a round cap in the burner box, reached once the drip tray is drawn out.
The exception is the infrared rotisserie burner, a self-contained unit Viking says plainly is not to be cleaned. Everything else answers to attention, and the attention worth booking is annual: burners and venturi tubes inspected for the nests that block them. Viking’s four warning signs — a gas smell with a yellow flame, temperatures that never arrive, uneven heat, burners that pop — all describe the same obstruction. On a cart behind a Hancock Park house or set in stone above the ocean, that is the visit that keeps one in service.
Asked on the phone
Is a grill of this age still worth repairing?
Judge it by what comes apart. Grates, plates, burners, the ignition battery and the rotisserie motor are all separable here, so a fault in any of them is a part rather than the end of the grill. What ends one is metal loss in the firebox, or a burner that will no longer sit square. That is settled with the grill open.
What is the clicking when the button is pressed?
The electronic ignition doing its work. Viking’s troubleshooting for a T-Series that will not light has the knob off and the grates and plates lifted away, so the tip can be watched for the spark jumping off it. Clicking with no spark, or silence, points at the battery under the panel or a tip that has gone dirty.
Written by Keiko Mabuchi Role: Service technician — cooktops and ventilation In the trade: 11 years
Somebody who has had this generation apart
Give us the number off the plate and what the igniter does when you press a knob. $89 covers the visit and the diagnosis, and comes off the repair.
$89 for the visit and the diagnosis, credited against the repair. Work carried out 8:00 am – 8:00 pm, seven days.