Question for Limo Jr. owners

[gfh]

Finally got over covid and had a decent weekend to smoke. First smoke on my brand new Limo Jr. Got it seasoned and loaded up four butts last night.

With temp running a stable 230 or so, after about 8 hours I noticed a couple of black tar looking drips running down the side from under the charcoal chute/smoker top seam (not the chute cover area, but below) down to the diamond plate on the side, and the entire diamond plate drip guard piece over the firebox door was spit-sizzling hot. That doesn't seem right.

Picture attached is sideways.



Have any other Limo Jr. owners out there seen this diamond plate piece too hot to touch? Or does it stay relatively cool?

Any help or feedback would be appreciated from the Limo Jr. crowd.

 

[Chester]

Yes, the diamond plate gets really hot. That is where the fire is burning. Not sure about the drips on the side. Mine has never done that. I have always kept a folded over (maybe 3-4 folds thick) piece of foil at the top of the charcoal stack.

 

[gfh]

Thanks Chester. I had a piece of foil in there. The drip isn't coming from there, but below, from under the tube steel lip welded around the charcoal chute.

I may call Scott at Southern Q next week. He's probably seen this before.

The reason for asking about the diamond plate is that it got hot enough to bow out in the middle, which bowed the end of drip shield down, which started catching the gasket that was sticking up a little on the firebox door.

 

[cclinard1]

Mine dripped from the same spot. I think it was something from the manufacturing process that moisture hit and caused the drip. It was pretty tough to clean off, but I got mostly gone with Citrus cleaner and Sonax Fallout cleaner.


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[gfh]

Thanks Chas. I tried to clean the trails with spit and a paper towel, with only partial success. Which BTW is how I noticed the diamond plate was spit sizzling hot. The drips seemed to have stopped at the end of the cook as best I could tell - I had paper towels jammed in there to catch them. Have you seen these drips every cook, or just the once?

 

[cclinard1]

Thanks Chas. I tried to clean the trails with spit and a paper towel, with only partial success. Which BTW is how I noticed the diamond plate was spit sizzling hot. The drips seemed to have stopped at the end of the cook as best I could tell - I had paper towels jammed in there to catch them. Have you seen these drips every cook, or just the once?

It only dripped from there on the first couple cooks, then it stopped.


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[smokeisgood]

Yep, mine did the same thing from the same spot. I now have rust in the crack between the top of the smoker and the bottom of the lid chute, which drips down the side. I just try to keep it cleaned off and waxed. The tarry drips never went away 100%, but mines black so it shows everything.

 

[SweetHeatBBQnSC]

I am very interested in hearing how this continues over time. This was one of my finalists when I upgrade to a high level smoker. This could definitely swing my opinion and decision in a different way.

 

[jkief]

I thought I read somewhere on here someone going through the same drip problem. Seems like y’all already chimed in. The bowing of the diamond plate is the first I’ve heard. I know it’s a different cooker with different material/manufacture process, but I had the new Assassin up to 425 this past weekend with only a small hot spot where the fire is located on the chute. What temp were you running at the time?

 

[Southpaw1061]

Has anyone brought this to Scott's attention yet? I'm sure Scott hasn't started building mine and would be curious if he would be willing to experiment on mine to find a solution to this.

 

[gfh]

Temps were a pretty steady 230 or so. I also had my fan speed limited to about 25% to keep firebox temps from spiking. Side note, but the 20 cfm fireboard fan is way more fan than you need. The 10cfm pit viper is probably more fan than you need.

After all the meat came off the racks I cleaned the racks and bottom drip area then cranked temp up to 325 to re-season everything. The bowing on the diamond plate was at 230, but didn't get much worse at 325. It's not too much of an issue if you're careful closing the firebox door.

After staring at this thing and pondering a bit, its pretty obvious the driver for this bowing is differential thermal expansion. Aluminum expands about twice as much as steel for a given temperature change. The aluminum plate is rigidly attached to the steel smoker with four screws. With about 10" / 25 cm vertical between the fasteners, the aluminum plate will grow about 0.8 mm and the base steel only about 0.4 mm assuming a 150C/270F delta T, which may be low. If there isn't any slop in the plate mounting holes the plate has to bow to accommodate that extra 0.4 mm. BTW, that's 15 mils, and all these numbers are approximate.

I'm going to pull the plate, wallow the top holes just a hair, and leave the top screws loose enough for the plate to "slide" as everything heats up. It won't take much to get rid of this bow as it expands.

 

[gfh]

I talked to Scott and Chris today, and they were very helpful. Chris builds all the Limo Juniors. They hadn't seen this bow issue before, but had seen the drips. Scott said the drips should stop after this charcoal chute gets a good crust built up. I think I'm there. I'd recommend jamming a cloth or paper towels around there for at least your first cook just because that crud is hard to clean off.

On the plate bow, 'm guessing that the vast majority of the time there's enough slop in the diamond plate mounting holes that this isn't an issue, or at least not noticeable. For the little bit of differential expansion you get you almost have to have the plate under tension to start with to get an actual bow.

 

[smokeisgood]

Has anyone brought this to Scott's attention yet? I'm sure Scott hasn't started building mine and would be curious if he would be willing to experiment on mine to find a solution to this.

It only did it on my first cook. If I were to get another new one, I would tape up some butcher paper or some such that the drip can run down instead of running down the side of the paint. After the first seasoning, it hasn't been an issue.

 

[smokeisgood]

Has anyone brought this to Scott's attention yet? I'm sure Scott hasn't started building mine and would be curious if he would be willing to experiment on mine to find a solution to this.

It only did it on my first cook. If I were to get another new one, I would tape up some butcher paper or some such that the drip can run down instead of running down the side of the paint. After the first seasoning, it hasn't been an issue. This is a pic of mine after I tried to clean it off somewhat. I got more of it off later....

 

[jeffshoaf]

My limo Jr. was delivered last week but I've only done one cook on it. I'm supposed to be on light duty due to surgery the week before so the smoker is still on the delivery pallet and it was a relatively short cook - about 5 hours total burn time peaking around 280° F. No drip and no warp but the diamond plate did get pretty hot.