I was rewiring one of my LTI era steam engines with the old fashioned puffer smoke units. However, the hot wire from the pick ups to the unit broke off at one of the most irritating of places.
I've tried to get as much wire from the heater as I could to connect it to the wire, and vice versa, but no how much I solder, the wires refuse to stay together.
Any help is welcome. 
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Nichrome wire is difficult to shoulder to. Try a mechanical crimp butt splice.
That unit uses a standard smoke resistor, just replace the resistor.
I found one for the scale Hudson made in 1990 on Lionel's site, so this should work.
The only downside is the sleeves, both insulator and wick ones, are unavailable from Lionel. Are there places available for these? Are there wires included like this one?
The wires on the resistor are several inches long, you just solder to those. As far as the wick, I just pack it with standard wick material when I repair them, I've never even looked for the sleeves.
As aboe poster mentioned-just replace the resistor .
Contact "the train tender" and ask if 8141-55 a 28ohm resistor and 8141-56 sleeve is the right one you need , the resistor does have decent leads on each end and shows in his pictures.
Resistor is 1.00 and sleeve is 20 cents also they are sold in bulk costing less.
I have converted some of my lionel pill smoke units and marx smoke units with these (works well) not sure though about the newer smoke units nowadays but he may be of help.
I always cut the sleeves off. They char up too quick anyway.
I need to get some new smoke unit batting for some early TMCC steam engines with fan driven smoke units - the ones Mike Reagan recommends for to improve smoke on those types of engines. I think I'll just get an extra one for this engine, along with the new resistor and gasket. That seem alright?
Sounds like a winner.
One more thing: After I stripped off the sleeves to ensure the resistor is correct, I found one instead of two. I guess this means I'll need two replacements, or is one enough?
That doesn't look like a stock installation. I've fixed several of these, all of them only had one resistor.
It's anyone's guess I suppose. I'm not sure if two resistors makes more smoke than one, but I think one should suffice.
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