Stumps Smoker Refurbish - Advice

Hey Everyone. Starting this thread because I'm tackling a project I know very little about, and all of you seem to be very knowledgeable.

Somewhat an instinct buy, but I bought an older Stumps from a food truck locally and lets just say it needs some love to get it back to it's former glory. I spent $300 on the beast and got a Digi Q thrown in, so it was a very good gamble in my opinion. The problem is that it was vented straight without any kind of rain protection such as a doghouse on the exhaust, and the Stumps wasn't used for a year or so in the truck. It's quite rusty inside the food box because of this but it seems the be mostly surface. The internal steel is still solid so some work and re seasoning should get it back to where it needs to be.

That being said, I know very little to nothing about refurbishing or gravity smokers other than what I've read here so I'm going to use this thread for advice if anyone is so kind to lend their expertise.

First stop - I plan to have a friend weld a wheel cart or dolly and have it welded to the bottom of the legs. However when researching Casters there is so many specs to choose from. So my first question in likely the series of many over the next few months is what type of caster would anyone recommend, and can the weight limit per caster be a little over 25% of total cooker weight due to having 4 casters to distribute the weight?

Fatback Joe said:

I can't help with the caster question, but do pay particular attention to the gasket at the top of the chute and the firebox door. If either of those are leaky you will have a tough time keeping it dialed in.

Also, check the mesh between the firebox and the cook chamber. Those don't last forever with a draft system in use.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

I've actually already been in touch with Stumps to buy a new chute door, and buying gaskets to replace everywhere else.

I was told by the previous owner it needs new mesh (I believe it's no longer even in the cooker). Do you have any idea what I should look for when purchasing the mesh? or perhaps another item to buy direct from stumps and have welded in place?

Thanks a ton for the response.