Pit Boss 1230 Navigator Smoke bellowing from pellet hopper!

[Hairy]

Twice now, once during a cook and once after a cook I've had smoke bellowing from my pellet hopper.
I always vacuum out the fire pot before I use it and everything is kept clean?
It had been running for 9hrs this time on around 110 c and the pellet hopper started bellowing smoke? After taking the ribs and diffuser plate out, I turned it to smoke and held the prime button on to feed the burning pellets out of the auger.......the fire pot was full of ash.......any ideas?


Cheers

 

[Themuttsnuts]

Twice now, once during a cook and once after a cook I've had smoke bellowing from my pellet hopper.
I always vacuum out the fire pot before I use it and everything is kept clean?
It had been running for 9hrs this time on around 110 c and the pellet hopper started bellowing smoke? After taking the ribs and diffuser plate out, I turned it to smoke and held the prime button on to feed the burning pellets out of the auger.......the fire pot was full of ash.......any ideas?


Cheers

G’day Hairy
ive had the same issue a few times, at first I thought it was the fire pot being full of ash. I noticed today that it was doing it again , I looked in the hopper and there were plenty of pellets in the hopper but where the hopper met the worm was clear of pellets.
So I assumed the pellets were not getting into the worn and the smoke was coming back through the worm from the fire pot. Personally I think it’s a design fault because I regularly have to push the pellets into into that area, which if you are doing a long slow cook isn’t ideal if your not at home.

to be honest I e had my navigator 850 for about 4 months and I’m disappointed with it, very high maintenance with the cleaning as there are so many fittings to clean. The fire pot seems too small and the searing slots only cover about 30%+-5%.

wish I had paid extra and gone for a Traege. Probably going to clean this one up and sell it.