Fix for wispy smoke from Lionel caboose?

The smoking cabooses are not made to put out smoke like a steam engine would.

To fix that you will need to install a fan driven smoke unit from a steam engine inside the caboose, otherwise you will have little to no smoke output from your caboose.

I have a K-Line smoking caboose and it just barely puts out a small trail of smoke at higher voltages like 16 to 20 volts.

Lee Fritz

Only once have I seen a caboose from any manufacturer smoke with any significant volume. That was the  Right-Of-Way Industries B&O Wagon-top caboose, seen in the attached clip. It was running under TMCC/Powermaster control,  at 19 volts.

Nice little puffer in the caboose!!

I've had a similar experience and there is no fix using the stock smoke units. In his Lionel Smoke Units 101 video Mike Reagan makes the point these caboose units are not meant to put out anyhing more than a wisp of smoke and do not have fans to propel the smoke out of the chamber. If you run them at any speed the smoke gets dissipated in the air. Not a very impressive effect but then a modern engine will produce so much smoke that maybe you hardly need any extra from the tail end of the train.

although the smoke just lofts out, there should be a nice amount for a non puffer. the same tune up that we do on regular smoke units applies to this one. most likely the batting is charred or the resistor may not even be in the batting. take it apart and tune it up, it will smoke nicely.

One problem is that many of the smoke units in cabooses are one piece units not made for maintenance.