Auger Jammed .. possibly rusted solid.

Man I hate even typing that subject. And first statement I love my Mak 2 star and it has been the best grill I have ever owned. And Customer support has been fantastic over the 6 years I've owned it.

But… My auger is completely jammed and solidly stuck.

Long story and ownership fault, covers have failed and not been replaced etc… Unit has always been outside on my patio and I have not been as good about clearing the hopper as I should have and it's been awhile since I used it ( 3 months ). I go out to crank it up and find the auger not feeding ( you know what it should sound like and when it's not moving you know it). This has happened one other time about a year ago.

So here I am. Unit fulling cleared out as much as I can. Dug out all the pellets I can reach. Tried getting a wire up the auger etc. This is nothing like the last time and if it's truly pellets in there I would be surprised. I think the auger is literally rusted to the tube. Of course I've unmounted the motor and tried to drive it out but it is not budging at all even with a small sledge. At the moment I have it tilted a bit and filled the channel with wd40 hopping it will free it up. I can't imagine pellets getting this solid in there it has to be rusted. There is very obvious pitting and scaring on the auger beneath the hopper. I have to assume it's the same alll the way down.

So I'm reaching out to the forum. ( I haven't contacted support yet. Just found this last night ). To see if anybody has any other suggestions. I'm afraid I'm out of options. And it's a very costly mistake.

Contact us after the holiday, we will get your MAK up and smoking again! It will be pellets, really no way for it to rust together as the tube is stainless steel and there is a lot of built in clearance. If you are still working at it one trick is to rotate the auger counter clockwise which will unscrew it from the jammed pellets sort of like removing a threaded bolt. You can try clamping onto it with vise grips from the hopper opening to aid in the force to get it started.

We've had that problem on one of our competition 2 Stars. We got a little careless when cleaning with a power washer and got water up the auger only later discovering the issue. We used a hanger from one end and a vacuum hose from the other end and were able to clear it after a bit of toiling around with it. Alternating the hanger and vacuum on either end.