I purchased a 2026 online from an ad that made it appear as if it was an incomplete unit. To my surprise, most of the parts are present and everything seems to be in fairly good shape. I took everything apart cleaned it up and spected the smoke unit which was also original, and working!
However, when reassembling it it appears as if some of the parts are incorrect. I'm guessing somebody tried to steal from a different Loco, but those don't seem to work properly with this smoke unit. Specifically the smoke piston crank arm, although it fits physically inside the 2026 Loco shell, doesn't seem to be the right crank arm for this model. I don't think that the eccentric cranks and the valve arm can be installed, because there is no hole to accept the valve gear crank arm. (Also, e center drive wheel doesn't have the two detents to keep the eccentric crank aligned at the fixed itself angle that locos like the 1666 have) And it looks like the crank arm for the smoke piston relies on that valve arm to actuate it in a reciprocating motion.
I've looked at lots of different photos of 2025 and 2026 s, and searched the forum, but none of the smoke piston crank arms seem to be the same type as the one that I have. Incidentally there is an extra piston crank arm that was included with this box of stuff, I took a photo of that so you can see what it looks like.
After cleaning out the smoke unit, it works really well even with just a couple of drops of smoke. There's a video attached showing how well the piston and puffer work together if the correct actuator was interfacing with it. Any ideas, parts that I should be looking for on the auction site, to make this work for me?
Thanks
Edit, the video didn't work, but it puffs nicely when I manually tap that crank arm lever down repeatedly.
