2026 Smoke unit lining?

On my post war huson the element was burnt in two. Repaired with toaster wire, used two cigarette filters and straight mineral oil. When pulling 8 asst. Freight and illuminated caboose it would run ya outa the house! At first I tried cotton, but it burns easily if you don't keep up the fluid. 

Postwar Lionel pellet type smoke units have a lining underneath the heater assembly.

I do have some early smoke units that were assembled without the linings. I suspect they were put together from pieces outside the factory.

 I would highly recommend using the "wadding". If you don't want to use the actual part, I have used fiberglass insulation from ceiling tiles. It have never made a difference to me if you use pellets, or smoke fluid in the unit. Having the wadding in there keeps the liquid in the smoke unit, if you tip it over.  I have found that if you have an old unit that has hardened up, that using the liquid will "dissolve" the old crusty stuff, and it will smoke just fine, for quite some time.

Ive heard some people put a wad of pink fiberglass in there, but I like the idea of the piece of fiberglass ceiling tile. I got a few laying around. I'll cut a piece out of that.   Thanks guys!

Early Lionel postwar smoke units that have the steel cap that fits over the housing did not have wadding.  The heater sits low in the chamber on top of a piece of mica. You can add a small amount of fiberglass under it, if desired.  The heater assembly is smaller in diameter and the ground lug hooks over the housing under the cap, while the later heater is larger in diameter and both the hot and ground leads pass through the cap.  Any fiberglass batting will work as wadding; some people have had good luck with the woven material modern Lionel sold.

Early Lionel postwar smoke units that have the steel cap that fits over the housing did not have wadding.

Look at the 12-47  issue of the Lionel Service Manual page(s) for the smoke unit, and you will see that those smoke units do use a smoke unit lining (671-221). I don't think I have ever serviced a locomotive that had a smoke unit that did not have a lining. As I posted earlier, I do have a quantity of early smoke units  (both 671-170 and 675-10) that were assembled without any lining. I am fairly certain they came from the Madison Hardware auction, and may have been put together by them. Not only were they assembled without a lining, but power lead has plastic insulation, as opposed to cloth covered, as was typically used at the factory. (When did plastic wire insulation come into use?).
I have used a couple of the smoke units without adding a liner, they do smoke fine.

Once the heat builds, much of the gunk will liquify and be wicked up.

  Mixing liquids seems to change the gunk making it enternally soft, but less likely to wick.  The trains that are responsible for this obvservation had a few different brands of fluids and three pellet types used over the decades though. (early pellets, later pellets, and the not so great older non Lionel ones)

I thought the pellets were only used with the dimple bulb style units?

Ron464nyc posted:

I thought the pellets were only used with the dimple bulb style units?

Sometimes not very well known, there were two types of Lionel Smoke Pellets - you have the #196 Smoke Pellets used with the dimple bulbs and the later Lionel SP Smoke Pellets. One should not use the #196 pellets in the heat-coil type smoke units. Lionel specifically warns against this because these pellets will attack the nickel chrome heat wire causing it to disintegrate. On the other hand, the SP Pellets can be used in a lamp type smoke unit with reduced performance as the lamp doesn't generate enough heat to fully vaporize the SP pellets.

Here is the Lionel Service Document excerpt regarding this:

The full set of service documents, including indications that the wadding was in all applicable smoke units:

http://www.olsenstoy.com/searchcd31.htm?itm=629

I thought the pellets were only used with the dimple bulb style units?

The smoke bulb units used a unique pellet #196. By now any 196 pellets should be decomposed. If not, they would not be safe to use.

Lionel used SP pellets from 1947 to 1969. Some folks believe that the Hagerstown (Japan) 2029 used liquid, but I had the pleasure to open a sealed 1968 11620 set (2029 / no whistle). It came with pellets.

The liquid smoke unit was not introduced until 1957. The only premium engine to use liquid smoke was the 746. A number of scout style locos used liquid smoke.

Not certain what early MPC did. Somewhere along the line they modified the pellet smoke unit to use liquid. (They also used the postwar liquid smoke unit, modifying it over the years) MPC cataloged pellets up to at least 1972.

I retro fit my 2026 with a new liquid smoke unit. Works great. The old one still worked but I didn't want to deal with the pellets and I got complaints from the CEO about the smell.

The old one had the wadding in it BTW.

Update: I found smoke pellets in the 1973 catalog, but not in the 1974 catalog.
After looking through the first few catalogs, I am led to believe that MPC did not put out any engines that calle for the pellets.

And thanks to BMORAN4 for the link to the smoke unit info on the Olsen's library site. I missed it and had to dig out paper.

I thought the Genersls used the first liquids. Didn't know of others.

I thought the Genersls used the first liquids. Didn't know of others.

I forgot about the General. The 1872 came out in 1959. So the 746 predated it.
The General had its own smoke unit. The 1862 did not have smoke. According to Tandem, neither did the 1882.

Here's a smoke unit from a 2055 that was full of melted pellets. I was able to reuse the original heater element. The heater would heat up but the hole from the piston was clogged.

Pry out cover with screwdriver

The pellets had saturated the fiber matter that I cut out. 

The hole was plugged.

new replacement fiber.

start over again.

I put fiberglass in today and buttoned the smoke unit up. .   Still witing for E unit contacts from Olsens....