Taistorm

Might be an idea to check all the terminals and the relay.

Yeah, more accurate I guess as more increments haha

The Mrs has a 2018 Seat Ateca for her work car, I think they are equivalent to the Volkswagen Tiguan. The thing is awesome, 2L diesel turbo which hauls ass super comfortably and quietly. 45-50L diesel gets about 800-850km. Have to fill approx 8L of adblue every 10,000kms. 30,000kms deep and the only issue is one of the tyre pressure sensors is playing up. I think new they are about 70k and unsure on how they compare to other makes but we've been loving it as it's probably the flashest car we will ever have haha. Has heaps of unnecessary functions like external door down lights, automatic boot etc.

35 minutes ago, jakesae101 said:

Try running lump, kingsford run great doing snakes ect in my kettle but ash up too hard and have had coals get ashbound when doing long cooks in my offset. I use commodities nz lump 24-25$ 10kg nice big pieces I normally start with a big chimney of it then switch to running wood and may alternate between the two depending how much wood I have I use alot of Pohutakawa. 

Yeah bro we kind of had a run of this today. Trying out different techniques to get it right.

Cheers man! 

We had another play around with the temps on this today. modified the firebox and removed the coal basket locator so we could push it right against the side by the cooking chamber. Half filled it with the Kingsford heat beads and a few bits of Manuka which worked a treat. Firebox was around 700 Fahrenheit and the cooking chamber got up to around 220 on the gauges. The heat gun was showing around 210-230 external heat across the chamber and we checked the grill plates later and they were showing approx 270. Realistically I think the internal/smoke heat might be around 230-250 which is perfect, might be worth in getting some other probes or upgrading the temp gauges down the track. Will be doing it's first proper cook tomorrow.

Cheers guys.

Yeah will be sparking it up on Wednesday and season it for the bro so hopefully it will cure the paint at the the same time and burn out any oils and toxins inside.

Sorted out the front bench. Cut up some 25x3 box and some 25x3 angle and welded up a frame (forgot to take a pic with the angle fitted). Drilled some holes and tested fitted with the mounts in place.

Then placed the macrocarpa on top to have a skeeze.

Been going hard at work leading up to xmas but also managed to squeeze in more time on this.

 Made a stopper for the Fire box door.

Sits pretty nicely now.

Also drilled some holes and mocked up the gauges. Wanted to put them higher but there would be clearance issues with the top rack.

I also welded in a little rack thing for the firebox grill to sit on and cleaned up the damper but forgot to take a pic.

Cheers bro, stoked as with it haha.

Yeah bro, put some removable baffles in for the reverse flow setup. Will wait and see how effective it is, if need be can change out for a different sized opening and run thicker steel plates for different temps.

And yeah that's a great idea. I actually picked up some fibreglass heat seal strips from bbq and more the other day to help with the doors.

Made some rails out of 25x5 angle to sit the grills on. Also put some steel at the front to straighten it out and reinforce it.

Added some more to the damper. Fitted a vertical bit of plate and some angle to act as a stopper. I'll dress it up a bit more so it looks a bit tidier before it's painted.

Then made some handle mounts for the doors. Pretty straight forward.

And fitted with the pine mocked up.

And some 50x5 angle for stoppers for the charcoal basket. Also I welded in some angle at the front to increase rigidity and pull it a bit straighter. Have since cleaned up the welds so it's nice and flat.

Alright, got a half day in on this today with the help of the mrs and I'm Fucking stoked with where I'm at. Can finally see the finish line. 

Started off with sorting the chimney and flue. Cut a length and a bend, welded in some locators for the adjuster and made a top hat that's fixed to a chipping hammer as the adjuster.

I positioned the handle offset so the flue can be fully opened for max heat. Pretty tall stack, mounted it about 3 inches above the main grilling plate and high enough so people don't have to try and dodge smoke all day.

Cut some holes towards the bottom of the cooking chamber and fire box, drilled some holes and made some nuts captive.

Cut some tabs.

And made some fully hectic wingnuts.

These really are just cleaning/drain ports. I was going to utilise the bungs already in the tanks but they are quite small and also would require a lot of cutting and Fucking around to make them suitable so decided on an easier alternative. Should be easy for clearing ash and grease etc. Can kind of see where they sit below.

Missed the original deadline as the bros birthday was on Monday but it doubles up as an xmas present as well so he can wait. 

Did some more work yesterday and smashed out the inner firebox/coal cradle thingy.

Cut some steel, mostly being 5mm angle and plate.

Put it together with some of the expanded mesh.

Then did a top frame thing with some left over 3mm angle.

It actually looks pretty good once it's sitting in place.

There's a decent amount of weight to this so it should help with heat retention and it's easily removable to help with cleaning out the old ashes. All that's left on the firebox now is the damper vent, a grill and the handle.

Cheers

Here's the baffle/tuning plate setup. Used 3mm plate with an overlapping step to try and keep everything sealed half decent. Might look at changing to 5mm plate later and possible more plates to help with different heats. It's all removable for easy cleaning. It's not the tidiest but it should be functional, keep in mind a lot of this has been rushed as I don't have much time left and I'm not a precision engineer haha.

And my minion/fiance gave me a hand with the sanding and metal prep which helped a lot! Gotta love the Samoan safety boots.

After that I tried to clean out the tanks and ran the torch throughout to try and cook out any toxins and oils but it wasn't too effective so we will just got it really hot when we season it.

Here's a pic of the firebox to main chamber inlet.

Making up the baffle was a Fuck around (seemed easier in my head). I ended up gassing out some 3mm plate for the opening then welded in some angle to act as a rail. 

I'm not proud of the welding haha. It's shit, the cutting was shit and couldn't re do it so had a bit of filling to do. This as well as not being able to get the mig tip in close enough and at poor angles for the most of it made for a shit time but ahh well, most of it will be hidden.

Spent most of today trying to crash this out. Got a lot done still have heaps to do. 

First off I trimmed the front foot and welded it on.

Then I cut out the door/lid for the Fire box. It looks a bit wonky, and it was hard to get it looking right as the Fire box was a little off level. 

Next I heated up the dent and tried to bash it out a bit. It's not mint but a lot better now.