Put it back together Wednesday night. While it was apart, I cleaned up all the parts and then painted the parts with high-temp paint (not the inside of the pot) and got it all back together. I dropped about 8lbs of lead into the pot and powered it up and it ran like a champ. The old element had broke into two parts at the heating coil on the inside of the pot assembly. I almost want to think it might have been dropped at sometime in its past with all my military moves that lead to a crack in the element that eventually burnt through.