The top that was basically ruined was fixed by cutting out all the rusted-through metal and getting out the greasy, hardened insulation. I tore it back from the hole as far as possible, and ground the edges more or less smooth. Then we filled the hole with oven insulation that came from old ovens that we found at the junk yard. A lot of the parts we used came from there!
Here's the finished top. You can see the large stainless steel piece that was made to fit. My brother has a metal fabrication shop, and made it for us. It fit perfectly, basically snapping into the top around both sides. It had a hole in just the right place, lining up with the smoke hole in the top of the smoker. I put a 3/4" pipe nipple in it, and secured it with electrical conduit nuts. It holds together well.
On the right, you can see the thermostat.
It came from a local used appliance
store, and included the temperature probe. The owner was really nice
and even threw in a knob. I just bent a small aluminum plate, and
drilled a hole for the shaft, and that was it. We stuck some blue
painters' tape on it and calibrated it
in our home oven, with the probe inside. We set the temperature of the
oven to 200 ° F, and when it clicked, the oven was at the right
temperature, turning off the element.
Then we just turned the knob on the new one until it clicked,
and then marked the tape where the arrow on the knob was pointing.
We did the same for about three temperatures, but you can do the same
for how ever many temperatures you want. Simple but effective.
Here's the finished product. You can see on the base that we added three pieces of angle iron to contain the drip pan, which is just a bread pan, two for $5 at WalMart.
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