Need Help/Ideas for Chargriller Side Firebox Mods

[pa pitmaster]

Hey everyone. I'm hoping someone out there has experience modifying a Chargriller firebox. I modified a charcoal grill from sam's club and turned into an off set smoker by adding a chargriller firebox to it. It works real well, and is built with some solid steel. However, the firebox I have is pretty cheap. The ash pan that slides in and out is warped, which causes some pretty big gaps near the pinweel damper. As you can already imagine, this makes it difficult to control heat. My problem is that my smoker is already prepped for the chargriller box, so i'm pretty much stuck with it.

Has anyone had the same issue? Has anyone modified one of these so they work good? Any advice/pictures would be greatly appreciated.

 p.s. You can see a pic of my smoker in my profile pic.

 

[venture]

Loads of mods for that unit on the site.  Just check out the handy search tool at the top of the page.  Those results will keep you busy for a while.

Good luck and good smoking.

 

[pa pitmaster]

Thanks Venture. I'll definitely check those out. I got time, smoking some ribs on the old Weber kettle ;) . Can't think of a better way to kill the time than to look at firebox mods.

 

[SmokinAl]

Like Venture said there's a ton of them!

 

[fliphyzer]

Go to home depot and buy two of the rectangular pieces of expanded metal.  Lay them out on top of each other flat to make a + and you can see how if you bend them at 90 degrees in two places each you can make a box with out a top  Fold them over and spot weld or bolt the edges together with some L brackets.

If you do it right the box will set nicely on those lips that help guide the drawer.

It's a little tight to get the charcoal box in and out the first few times till you get the hang of it, but not too bad.

I havent figured out a good way to get a seal on the door and ash tray, but have been thinking of using that oven rope sealer stuff you can get at ace for $8 or so.

And there are a couple of holes in the firebox you will want to run a bolt through and nut up to seal them.