Remember that nice, shiny new smoke unit from Olsen's Toy Trains I put in my 2025 during its recent restoration?
Well, the cussed little thing conked out after an hour or so of operation. After trying various things such as letting the engine sit overnight and letting it sit in neutral with full power on for an hour or so to burn off any excess fluid, I sighed and dismantled the loco.
To my chagrin, I discovered that the cement holding the plastic cap on had loosened, and the cap was floating free. Since this particular design calls for the resistor to have a friction fit ground against the body of the smoke unit, it stopped working.
After some mulling over and foul language, I decided that an external ground was called for. So, I pried the ground out of the cap and folded it over the outside of the smoke unit.
It was at this point I discovered that the Brain Trust at Lionel had, for some obscure reason, seen fit to mold yon smoke unit out of Cerroflex or some other low-temp alloy:
Oh, well. At least it's grounded now.
Helpful hint: Don't wait until the locomotive is mostly reassembled before noticing you forgot to put on the smokestack gasket. It's a darned good thing I love model railroading, else my workshop windows would, no doubt, have several locomotive-shaped holes in their panes.
Side note: Since I'm the paranoid cautious type, I also picked up a rebuild kit for the original pellet-based smoke unit, and that's been overhauled and is ready for action just in case:
If I DO wind up installing this one, I think I'll just run a jumper wire to the frame. ;-)
Mitch
