Up to now I've been rigging up my charcoal grill for smoking with indirect heat, it's old and kind of falling apart. Regulating the temperature is pretty much a full time job whenever I have anything going in there. So I'm used to doing that and this would probably be a step up. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon than outside with beer and hickory smoke in the air.
Sorry my previous post wasn't very detailed, I was on my phone, at my daughter's softball game.
OK, it's possible to make this a decent smoker. As I said, I used this for years with very good results. First, get some flexible metal pipe(sorry, forget the diameter I think it was just dryer vent) that fits over the smoke stack on the inside, clamp it to the stack and run it along the top of the grill down to the grates and cut it off there. This will keep the heat flowing lower, along the grates and really helps to even out the temps.
Also, buy some of the ceramic charcoal briquets they sell for gas grills. Line the large charcoal pan, in the main part with these. These will also absorb heat and help to regulate the temperature. Another thing I did was get some good quality fired brick and put a few of those in the bottom of the smoker. One really close to the firebox opening to reduce the size of it as the larger opening for this smoker let too much heat in at once. That was basically it. Yes, if it got into the 20s outside, it was a challenge to keep it warm, but any decent weather, it was really a breeze.
Get the fire stoked, I always started with a chimney fill of charcoal and got that going. Then dumped it in the fire box. On top of that, I'd put some more charcoal and then a good amount of wood I was using. Use as large of pieces as you can get as they will last much longer and burn better. Keep everything open until it gets going good, then close the lids on everything, but leave the dampers wide open. Let it get warmer than you want. I usually let it get to about 300 degrees. Then close everything down. Usually, since this wasn't a top notch offset, I was able to close the firebox damper down almost all the way and the damper on the smoke stack about half way. After sitting for another 20 minutes or so, then putting on the meat, it would usually sit right at 225 for about 4 hours this way.
After this initial set, it was a challenge to keep everything just right using just wood. So I would fire up another chimney full of charcoal and put some good chunks of wood on top of that to get going as well and put that in the firebox again. This would usually give me another 4 hours of good cooking. Now you have to check on it at least every hour or so, depending on the weather. More windy days were trickier to me than just cooler days, because the wind getting in could mess up the airflow.
I've used a few smokers over the years and in this price range, this worked as well as anything on the market. And it has a huge cooking surface. You can make a lot of food on it and I usually did, just to justify firing it up.
I will say though, I switched to a Louisiana Grills LG900 pellet cooker and I don't think I'll ever go back to a regular smoker. I give up a little in smoke flavor, but the ease and convenience of cooking is next to none. It literally is a set it and forget it. The only reason I ever come back to it is to baste or mop the meat.
As I said, google "Chargriller smoker mods" And you should find details on everything I described above. Hope this helps.