I've made up my mind, but....

[tanglefoot]

You can take off the element access plate and plug in the Mes power cord and right when the element is hot and trips. Quickly unplug the smoker, remove the connectors from the element and with the ohm meter on the highest setting touch one of the element male spades with a probe and the other on the back of the smoker to see if there is continuity when the element is hot. Maybe the resistance wire when hot has a failed insulation area between the resistance wire and outside metal element jacket that deforms with heat allowing the short.

OK. Did that. Set the multimeter on the 20m setting. As soon as it tripped, I pulled the leads off and checked like you said. It started at a low number like 2.5, then slowly rose to around 20. Then went blank.

 

[dr k]

Here's a direct wire link.

 

[tanglefoot]

Here's a direct wire link.

Yep. Thanks, Doc. I'm seriously considering doing that, and I probably will end up that way.
I was just hoping to keep the thermal kick-out switch in the loop.

 

[dr k]

OK. Did that. Set the multimeter on the 20m setting. As soon as it tripped, I pulled the leads off and checked like you said. It started at a low number like 2.5, then slowly rose to around 20. Then went blank.

There should be no continuity. It seems the conductor in the element is touching the outer element jacket when hot that is touching the aluminum mounting bracket where the grounding nut and bolt are. If it worked directly connected to the element was there a ground wire attached to the chassis like in the next post where one of the access cover screws was terminating the ground. Just making sure the chassis was grounded on that 20 min good run just like before when it tripped.