Steve, I read the OGR forum quite regularly and there is a fellow there named Bob Coniglio who has been doing some tests with what he calls "Lionel's anemic smoke units". He has been doing many things from eliminating the sleeve to replacing the wicking with MTH wicking which he has found superior. I would recommend that you take a trip over there and search the archives for some of his messages. They are very informative. I plan to incorporate some of his findings into an improvement of my Big Boy's smoke unit.
Thanks for the source of replacement parts, I may need it if I break something.
Ed Weltens
"Steve Wise" <swise@aoot.com> Sent by: ttat-members-owner@aoot.com
03/12/2002 08:13 PM
Please respond to ttat-members
To: <ttat-members@aoot.com>
cc:
Subject: smoke unit replacement parts
Hi all,
I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but I thought I'd email out my
findings.
I had some smoke units burn on out on my modern lionel steam engines. I
like to fix things myself, so I didn't consider sending this to lionel or a
repair shop. So I went on-line after reading Jim Barretts article on smoke
units in Run 184 of O-Gauge Railroading. After two rounds of purchases,
I've found some part numbers that seem to be useful for ordering replacement
parts.
The parts in question are:
1. Smoke unit top (black plastic top that fits on top of the smoke chamber,
with the smoke stack hole in it).
2. Heating element. This is a resister that heats up and gently burns the
liquid smoke producing that smoke that we all know and love (and Adrian is
addicted to :-). This looks like a large resistor and the two wire-ends
poke out of the smoke unit top and connect to ground on one side and your
controller board's power on the other. The ground side is soldered to the
outside of the smoke unit chamber.
3. Heating element cover. This is a woven fiberglass cover that keeps the
heating element from buring the smoke unit lining. It is what you see
crossing the smoke stack hole when you look down in from the top. It gets
dark with use and abuse. It disintegrates after a while and the heating
element burns up. This all happens fairly quickly if you run an engine
without liquid smoke in the stack!
4. Smoke unit lining. This is a flat yellow disk that sort of looks like
yellow fiberglass insulation. It sits in the bottom of the smoke unit
chamber and acts as a wick to pull the liquid smoke up to the heating
element. Jim Barrett recommends putting two of these in if you replace them
as they work better at keeping the liquid smoke on the heating element (thus
keeping the element from burning out).
I found that I can order items1-3 as a single replacement part, number
8206-11. I think this number is standard, but I got them from Stan Orr
Train Parts (http://stanorrtrainparts.com) for $5 each. This is really all
you need to fix a burnt out smoke unit.
Item 4 is number 671-221 and I got them for $.35/ea from Stann Orr.
Also, Jim Barrett recommends you seal the smoke unit top using Permatex
Form-A-Gasket non-hardening sealant. You can get this at most auto stores.
He claims sealing this will improve the performance be eliminating smoke
leaks out the sides of the some unit where it joins with the the smoke unit
top.
I also have part numbers for replacing the entire unit if anyone is
interested.