brinkman gourmet smoker mod?

[rober49]

i'm holding off on buying a weber WSM because I suspect i'm getting one for Christmas. so-i'm still using the brinkman gourmet. one weak point in this smoker is the aluminum door. it's super light weight, the the latch is a joke, and I have NEVER used it. i'm thinking about removing it & cutting & shaping a piece of heavy sheet metal, running a bead of furnace cement, & bolting the sheet metal in place, & eliminating the door altogether. has anyone else done this? I wish the lid had a lip like the weber kettles so it sat on top of instead of inside the smoker body. that would make for a much better seal.

 

[forluvofsmoke]

I would just seal-up the door instead of fabbing anything from sheet metal, especially if you might not be using it for much longer. A little RTV can go a long way towards semi-permanent seals.

Eric

 

[rober49]

actually I've decided to modify the door latch. getting to close more tightly should be improvement enough. I had a  grease fire in the drip pan & most of the paint  burned off so yesterday I wire wheeled it off & repainted it with high heat paint.

modifying the door was easier than I thought it might be. the way the handle attaches to the latch is cheesy. when I tried to bend the latch to make it hold tighter it was too loose a fit to the handle. I drilled a hole thru the handle & the latch. then I ran a # 10 machine screw thru the assembly with a washer &  nut. that's all it took. the hinge is held by 3 screws. I added 2 more evenly spaced between the originals tightened that seal up.

another follow up. I was recently given a brinkman smoke & grill smoker. the latch is identical but  the door is steel & seals better than he aluminum door on the gourmet model. since it's sealing there's no need to try to bend it to get a better fit which is what I think happened to the gourmet latch. with the exception of the base set up there is no difference between these smokers. because of the base i'd give the gourmet the edge over the smoke & grill. I also just saw a char broil brand smoker that look identical to these except for the location of the heat sensor.