A Look inside the Milwaukee Road S-3

Jeff,

Thanks for posting the pictures. Very insightful.

Looks like putting smoke fluid into the stack fills up one side of the smoke unie and then the wadding on the other side gets filled by way of seapage. Is that how it looks to you?

Also, looks like one of the resistors is charred, am I correct?

Thanks for taking it apart.

Mike R

Thanks Mike. You are correct by saying the fluid seeps to the other side. In my case I wonder if enough fluid got to the other side. The other issue I had was the silicone hose attaching the steam chest was pinched causing erratic smoke. I wonder with that not properly venting and maybe not enough smoke fluid is what did that resistor in?
I was able to measure the smoke stack resistor at 8ohms and the steam chest at 300ohm I am assuming because its burnt out. I ordered a couple 8 ohm resistors and will replace when they come in and keep you guys posted.

It might be better for me to add fluid the night before I run my s3 the ist time to let the fluid wick up to both sides. mine is a christmas present so will open up with the other gifts and not in a hurry to get it going, will want to look at it the 1st night.

it would sure be nice if a reservoir could be added and the fluid would then run into the wicking at just the correct speed so as not to burn the resistor. or a hatch we could open and put the fluid in.

just dreaming.

I bet the steam chest resistor is smaller cause it needs to get hotter quicker and the smoke batting may not have enough length on it to reach the bottom of the bowl to wick the fluid up. So obvisouly it will overheat and burn out does the board or anything close to the resistor look burnt? also I would check that the batting does reach the bottom of the bowl. I only say this cause my vision challenger had a problem with the whistle and the batting didnt reach the bowl.

I agree, there should be a separate fill spout. My best guess for getting fluid over to the other side would be to use a bottle with a needle tip. BE CAREFUL though, you can touch the top of the resistor from the smoke stack. I would do it with the track powered down or the train off the track and stick the needle in as far as it will go.

Lordtryzalot - The board is a little toasted but I still have continuity between clips and post were resistor mounts. I will take the other suggestion into consideration when re-assembling, thanks.

To give a little back ground. I unwrapped the train, put it on the track, added smoke fluid and programmed the legacy remote. Made about 6 circles around the tree then stopped the engine in front of me to admire the steam chest / blow off.
Everything seemed to be working fine, the steam chest seemed to be erratic but working. While playing around with the lights and viewing the mars I noticed a strong burning smell and by the time I could shut down the transformer the train shut down and the transformer was blinking.
I thought for sure there was a catastrophic meltdown. I waited couple minutes then plugged the transformer back in and to my surprise the train was still working. So I decided to take it apart to see what happened (this will void the warranty). This is when I saw the burnt resistors and some other things I really didn't like but will have a chance to change on re-assembly.
The last nail in the coffin is Lionel can't even verify the resistor values so its kind of a crap shoot right now. Even after all the drama I have gone through I still think this is an awesome engine and will do whatever I have to to get it fixed. Hopefully this thread will help others avoid issues and not scare them away from a purchase... Jeff

I don't know what the manual recommends but that smoke unit looks like it could take at least a couple of eyedropper-fulls to get it primed.

I would try and do it as slow as possible if you put that much. When I filled mine which was 1/2 a mega steam eye dropper it was all over the inside of the engine. Not sure if it was the elbow leaking or overflow. I am thinking a needle all the way to the bottom of the cavity is key and let it wick up instead of seep down. Its all speculation but open for discussion. I am not even 100% sure if not providing fluid to a smoke resistor will burn it out. I seem to recall reading that in a manual, maybe someone can confirm... Jeff

No I didn't but I will now, that's awesome! Thanks for the info...Jeff

I had copied some of the posts from that thread because they were informative as was noted above. The value identified for the resistor was 8 ohms not 6 ohms.

Looks like a nice Pony in the backround!

Thanks LIRR, 8 ohms are what I ordered. Hopefully they will be here today and I can start the repair..

Chuck - to bad its not a full size one, lol.

FYI to the readers of the post. The email address above is to a different Mike.

Dah! I thought you took the picture in your garage and it was in the backround. Maybe it's time for some glasses!

quote:

Originally posted by jmik26:
. I didn't know that and now I am stuck doing the repair on my own.

You can still send it in anytime for repair.Your not on the dont repair list. Probubly would of cost ya under 50.00 and they would of went over the entire engine if you asked.
I am only mentioning this because i bought a challenger a few months at a reduced rate , apperently someone else had returned it and lost half the things off the engine and additionally headlight etc wasnt working and had done something inside. The first day i had it ,i backed over the loosened teather and ripped it out of the engine.

Sent it in 6 days later it was back, around 75.00 with shipping for all the parts missing new smoke unit, teather , bell etc. Looks and runs like brand new....

Although i see your point , if its an easy fix , id rather just just do it myself to avoid the send back let alone the service charge. But if something major happens they re not gonna tell ya send it somewhere else.

Thanks for posting.

I agree with Patrick. Personally, I'd put the engine back together without "repairing" the resistors or anything, and send it to Lionel for repair. Most assuredly they'll fix it, and if it isn't right, Mike Reagan will take care of you.

If anything will void a warranty, screwing around and replacing electronic parts on your own will. This could lead to further problems, too. Think about this: What if you proceed to do the "repairs" yourself and put it all back together and it still doesn't work right? Now what? Open it all up again and start experimenting?

Just my opinion.

Chuck - hahaha, that's funny

Patrick - That is correct, I should have mentioned that. I guess its because I didn't even consider it that I didn't mention it.

Some others also mentioned some facts that conflicted with the responses I got from Lionel. Below is the word for word emails back and forth. Its probably a generic answer from a representative but it is the answer I got. Good thing is it lead me to the forum and I am finding a wealth of info...

Lionel : "We can do a return authorization for you, this would be a charge repair as you took the engine apart and voided your warranty. The charge is $60 for the labor plus cost the of parts. Please respond back with your address and phone number so that we can start the return process."

Jeff : "Can you tell me what size resistors are in the circuit? There are no available parts online yet? I would prefer to just fix the item myself, no need to pay $60 for a $2.00 resistor.... Jeff"

Lionel: "This appears to be a newly released engine. At this time we do not have a parts list or replacement parts available. It will take about a month or two to get the engines in for parts. This leaves us with no specifics on the engine."

Breez - if the resistors don't work I have no other choice but to send it in. Lionel already informed me that I voided my warranty and I thought, if they don't know what the values are and have no parts how will they repair it? That was my initial thought. Since learning everything that I have in the last couple days I am sure they can repair it and maybe some strings could be pulled to take care of me but I already ordered the parts and they should be in today or tomorrow.

Some good and bad news.

Good - I got the resistors in and everything went back together fine. I also verified that both main smoke and steam chest smoke work just as erratic as before. I used 8 ohm resistors for both.

Bad - The steam chest smoke seems to still be weak and I fear its gonna burn out again if further mods are not made. Take a look in the photo below with pinched hose. I think this may be what is causing some problems for me? What do you think?

So I took it apart AGAIN and pulled the hose back 1/8" on both elbows to relief the kink. I put everything back together and the steam chest smoke is even worse now . Not to mention I broke a front rail and the name plate on the side fell off. YEAH, I'm done for today.

I am sorry you guys have to go through all this. The price for complexity is consternation, I guess.

But these locomotives appear to be well constructed and well detailed, so when all the fancy stuff quits, you will surely have a market for a locomotive that can be converted to 2-rail scale.

Jeff, what are you using for smoke fluid? The damage to the resistor looks like it was cause by a fire rather than simple overheating of the element.

Pete

Dang! That sure is one complicated piece of machinery. Glad I am running conventional like North Pole Central and post war. After wrestling with the audio board in my so called "multimedia" computer for days this week, the last thing I want to have to do is troubleshoot one of my favorite sources of enjoyment... I gave up with this crap when my MTH PS1 stuff became troublesome and obsolete. I own a couple of TMCC engines (the very early ones) but that's as far as I go! Keep it Simple!

Bob - I agree its well constructed. Sometimes my sausage fingers do more harm then good..

Norton = I use Mega Steam smoke fluid

Tommys - I have some GP30's, Berkshires, E6's, and now the S3. The S3 is by far the most detailed and pretty looking train which make it not working even worse. I am trying to stay positive but I am slowly getting to the frustration point.

quote:

Originally posted by jmik26:
I am trying to stay positive but I am slowly getting to the frustration point.

Don't let that happen, Call Lionel and send it in. Even if you have pay a couple bucks, at least you know it will be taken care of.

Sent a email to Mike. Time to say UNCLE!

I hope you have read New Milwaukee Road LEGACY S-3 Product Video on Lionel.com! .
Mike Reagan has also done may worth wile videos worth watching.
He usually checks his email early in the morning.
Good Luck,
It will be worth it.
Dan

Thanks loco-dan. I just read through the posts. Looks like I was on to something or at least on the right track, lol. Makes me feel a little reassured. I will wait to hear from Mike and see what he suggest. I am disgusted that I broke the front rail today. All I want for Christmas is my S3 fixed

The baffle plate looks like it has a notch in the bottom to allow fluid to move between chambers. The problem is the fluid enters the top has to work its way down thru the stack chamber, then make it over to the other chamber, then UP to the resistor.

You could open the notch more, and I would think this takes a lot of fluid and then you need to let it soak for a while.

But the stm chest resistor is certainly last in line for smoke fluid.

Hard to tell, but could you drill a small hole in the entry port for the smoke stack side, then install a small brass tube that you could fill using a needle type syringe to directly feed the stm chest side?

I guess the other thing that caught my eye is the electronic board is a one board. Is legacy a single circuit board, vice the component boards of TMCC? G piece board

My S3 came with some smoke fluid in it from the look of the stack. I put about an ml in it, then maybe another ml 3 or 4 times. We ran it with the smoke on about a half hour to 45 minutes. I'm just wondering if you are using enough fluid. The amount Mike mentions in his video seems more like the amount one uses for a single smoke chamber. We might have to recalibrate our sense of fluid quantity needed.

GGG - I thought about making that gap bigger or drilling some holes in it but I think that will ruin the separation between steam chest and main stack operation. That is one of the issues I have right now. When I hit the blow off button I can see a increase in smoke out the stack. If I put my finger over the stack for a brief second the smoke pours out the steam chest. Its like its taking the path of least resistance.

cjack - I soaked mine with a full dropper before putting it together. The main stack blows smoke better then ever but the steam chest is barely working. I did read through some post loco-dan linked to and Mike did mention a eye dropper with a needle is the way to go.


The worse part is it has to be taken apart every time you need to tweak something. The more times I took it apart my patience was wearing thin and caused carelessness which led to breaking parts.

jmik26, I'll put in my 2 cents worth because the smoke unit you have looks the same as my Vision Challenger's unit, which has been repaired once at Lionel and was never, and isn't, a brilliant performer. Notwithstanding that I agree your best course is to send the engine to them because they must be familiar with this particular unit's issues now:

1. I also voided my warranty by opening the boiler shell. The main stack smoke output was poor and I thought that it was a standard maintenance job to service it by, for example, checking the resistor\wadding contact and priming the unit directly rather than through the stacks.

2. Wrong! As you have seen, the unit has two chambers; on mine there was a single strip of smoke wadding that ran through the bottom slot between the two chambers and up and over the resistors. I guess that the smoke fluid is intended to flow from one chamber to another and up the strips by capillary action. I think that this has now been changed by Lionel by packing ordinary wadding in each chamber up to the resistors. It didn't make any great difference to the output but it works reasonably after the unit has warmed up for a few minutes. The whistle smoke on the Challenger is variable in output for reasons I don't understand. The dynamo smoke mostly works but that has a separate smoke unit. I use Mega-Steam, which works great on my other engines.

3. I suspect that you would get the same sort of repair on the main unit as I did if you returned it to Lionel, that is it was replaced with a new and re-packed unit. Mike Reagan was very helpful in explaining what they were going to do.

4. Lastly, if you want to experiment with a different solution, I don't think that enlarging the slot between the two chambers would necessarily cause smoke to "leak" from one to the other if the slot is filled with smoke wadding. The smoke is produced at the top of the unit where the resistor is and in a re-packed unit will not flow downwards through the wadding. I decided against trying this myself but have obtained a spare main unit for my Challenger.

Good luck. Smoke units are the weak link in all this high-tech. You'll note another thread on this forum where a similar S3 problem is explained: http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve...7660482/m/8742935127

quote:

1. I also voided my warranty by opening the boiler shell. The main stack smoke output was poor and I thought that it was a standard maintenance job to service it by, for example, checking the resistor\wadding contact and priming the unit directly rather than through the stacks.

Yeah, I kind of thought the same thing, like brakes on a car. I guess my own faults just help pour salt on a wound, lol. I sometimes think if it worked fine I wouldn't have to be doing any of this but I guess all that gets thrown out the window once you take it apart.
I did get a response back from Mike giving me the idea of spraying compressed air into the steam chest. I am gonna give it a try.
If that don't work I am gonna give serious thought to putting it up on Ebay at a discount. I am sure I can buy another one once all the problems have been worked out...

I tried compressed air on the Vision dynamo; it still doesn't consistently work as in videos of other people's models and I think that the problem is probably in the tubing like you have for the steam chest. Mike's right however that the tubes can get clogged with excess fluid, especially I suppose if there's a kink in it somewhere.

Can't help but feel that if rather more was spent on designing, testing and producing these units they'd perform better - like the ones that TAS used to make.

quote:

Originally posted by jmik26:

quote:

1. I also voided my warranty by opening the boiler shell. The main stack smoke output was poor and I thought that it was a standard maintenance job to service it by, for example, checking the resistor\wadding contact and priming the unit directly rather than through the stacks.

Yeah, I kind of thought the same thing, like brakes on a car. I guess my own faults just help pour salt on a wound, lol. I sometimes think if it worked fine I wouldn't have to be doing any of this but I guess all that gets thrown out the window once you take it apart.
I did get a response back from Mike giving me the idea of spraying compressed air into the steam chest. I am gonna give it a try.
If that don't work I am gonna give serious thought to putting it up on Ebay at a discount. I am sure I can buy another one once all the problems have been worked out...

I can't imagine the repair cost being any worse than the loss you will take if you can find someone to buy a brand new broken/damaged locomotive with no warranty,IMO you be lucky to get $500 for it. Take the advice of others, send it in and get it fixed, in the long run it will be a smaller loss and you'll have a functioning loco.

I guess my issue is, is it guaranteed to work perfect after the repair? My guess is no, it will be the same with new parts. Below is Mikes response to my email for others looking to try and rectify the problem.

"If you take a can of compressed air, like they sell in office supply stores for cleaning dust out of keyboards and the like, hold the loco upright, in the air and hit the holes on the underside of the steam chest a couple times, just very short blasts of air. Up the cylinder holes.

This will force any excess smoke fluid that may be sitting in the tubing to push back into the smoke chamber and leave the airway open for vapors to come out of. PLEASE just a couple short blasts, do not lay on it like it is an air horn!

The two holes on each cylinder are the same chamber, so you will need to hold a finger (or 3) over 3 of the holes and blast the air into the remaining open hole. This should clear up your issues.

As for the broken parts I would suggest using a small dab of super glue to glue them back in place (or JB Weld). Unless the parts are available separately, but we have not even begun the tear down process for the S-3’s, will not be another 2-3 weeks before we start, as we are just starting on the 15 different variations of the AC6000 now. The parts will be available in mid to late January, but not til then."

quote:

I guess my issue is, is it guaranteed to work perfect after the repair?

It was "guaranteed to work perfect" when you purchased it originally, what the devil is the problem with Lionel repairing it? For crying out loud, please stop whining about it and send it in! Mike will fix it "perfect"!

quote:

Originally posted by breezinup:
Personally, I'd put the engine back together without "repairing" the resistors or anything, and send it to Lionel for repair......Think about this: What if you proceed to do the "repairs" yourself and put it all back together and it still doesn't work right? Now what? Open it all up again and start experimenting?

I'm not going to say "I told you so", but......
(Well, frequently my kids don't take my advice, either. )

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Water:

quote:

I guess my issue is, is it guaranteed to work perfect after the repair?

It was "guaranteed to work perfect" when you purchased it originally, what the devil is the problem with Lionel repairing it? For crying out loud, please stop whining about it and send it in! Mike will fix it "perfect"!

I guess that's why there is many people with issues? Also I did email Mike and he mentioned nothing about sending the engine in, he told me to blow air in it. Awesome, I will go and blow canned air into my $900 engine, lol. Sorry, my only intent was to help others. I will not post anymore.... Thanks to all the people that tried to help