How much to replace smoke unit?

$35.00 and must contact Lionel to order.  Go to Lionel.com.  Click on "SUPPORT".  Click on "Replacement Parts".  Type in your part number.  Click on "View Parts" for Loco Only.  Sequence No. 38

You may well have just burnt up the wicking to the extent that it will not allow fluid to be vaporized.

The wicking is likely burnt right on to the resistor.  A resistor ($2) and wicking may be all you need.

Should be a simple fix.  These engines are not difficult to get into and if you post pictures once in, we can walk you thru the repair.

Judging by your name,  I assume Pete that you may be a pilot.  If so....if you can fly a plane you can do this fix !  

Dave

Haha - Yes believe it or not I can actually fly small single engine airplanes, but for some reason I have always been afraid of tinkering with things (makes no sense..I know). By the way, how could I tell if I just burnt the wick? I assume I need to take the shell off first? Thanks to both of you for your replies!

Cheers, Pete

PilotPete posted:

Hi Folks - Don’t ask me how I did this since i fell pretty stupid as it is. I bought a new Lion Chief Plus loco and tender #6-82971 and inadvertently ran it for quite a while with smoke unit dry and not turned off! I’m pretty sure I ruined the smoke unit since i have tried a few times to add fluid and run. I get a little bit of smoke for a few seconds and then nothing. I am also not very mechanically inclined so i was wondering if anyone has an idea of how much a hobby shop would charge to repair this and if it is worth it to fix. I am assuming nothing else got damaged due to my error. Thanks in advance for your input!

Cheers, Pete

Don’t feel stupid. I’m sitting here playing with my DCS controller. I’m deleting functions specific locos don’t have. I realize I’m deleting functions from a Premier GEVO, when I think I’m playing with a WBB that in did a PS2 upgrade for... Easy fix. factory reset the GEVO. I’m running for a while and I smell burning electronics. It took a few minutes for me to realize that a factory reset turns on the smoke unit. I can’t run smoke in my home. Each time I open an engineI’ll be unplugging the smoke unit. Ugggh that’s a bad smell.

I am most certainly capable of making that very same mistake!

Good thing about being a pilot  is that I will never buy a plane, will just rent. All I have to know is that something IS wrong, but someone other than me gets to fix it!

Cheers, Pete

You will need to take the shell off the engine to access the smoke unit.

Probably 4 screws will release the shell from the chassis.  Then the top of the smoke unit will have probably 4 screws.  Take those four out and there you will now see the resistor and wicking.

It really is quite easy.

Take a chance!  Take the shell off first and see how that goes.. 

And please remember that an engine with a fan-driven smoke unit needs ONE FULL DROPPER of fluid added at the end of each operating session... not the measly 4-6 drops often recommended. 

Jon

easy to repair as someone else stated all u need to do is replace the wick about $2.00 and your time, clean out the old burnup wick and replace it . if your wick is so burnt up and I suspect it will be because you ran it dry which is a big NO no ! if the wick is really burnt up bad and you can't clean it and get all  the old wick off of resister heater you'll have to replace  that to. both parts should be less then $5.00! sometimes when you take the top off smoke unit the gasket will have to be replaced, that's pretty easy and also not expensive. to buy a new smoke unit could be a lot more expensive, usually better to repair them!

to buy a smoke unit complete could cost $30.00 to $40.00 bucks.

Thanks again to all of you for your input! I will have a look and see what lies inside the unit.

Cheers, Pete

PilotPete posted:

Good thing about being a pilot  is that I will never buy a plane, will just rent. All I have to know is that something IS wrong, but someone other than me gets to fix it!

I always took the other route.  When I rented, more than once I ended up with surprises, several very unpleasant!  When I owned my own Mooney, when I pulled it out of the hanger, I fully expected it to be in the same shape as when I put it in.  Rental airplanes cover the gamut of condition, they go from very well maintained to beaters.

Yeah that is definitely true in a lot of places. Here in the Chicago area I fly out of Schaumburg Regional and Lake in the Hills who's FBO's both always had a good maintenance history. 

Cheers, Pete

Pete,  I'm what is referred to today as a "low-end" train guy or a "traditional" guy. But I learned how to fix trains by starting with low cost beaters. I learned a lot from those problematic plastic-encased Scout motors!

I'm sure as Soo Line said, guys here can walk you through your repair. That is one great thing about this forum. 

One pointer I can offer you, since it sounds like this would be your first repair, is to get yourself a box and some small containers: I use the plastic snack pack fruit cup containers or the old plastic film canisters. Get yourself a piece of paper and label everything that you pull apart. When you loosen screws that hold the body to the chassis, put those in a container and label those. Especially important if you are working on the project in different time slots as your life schedule permits!

Take some notes as you are pulling things apart, and/or take some photos as you go along. Believe me, it will help you greatly and save a lot of guess work when you go to put things back together. You can't reply on the photos on the Lionel parts site. They show a breakdown, but not how everything is attached or the order of that assembly.

Another tip I have found useful is to have a DC power pack like what is used for HO trains. It's great for testing motors and such, since much of what is used today are DC motors and work on AC when wired up to the other circuit boards. It's nice to know a motor works in advance before you get everything all put back together and wired up.

Some of the fan driven smoke units that I've worked on have the conversion electronics wired into them. But I'm not expert enough to know if every one of them is like that. I'm sure others can answer that one.

LC+ smoke units have no electronics, just a resistor, a connector, and a couple connections down to the smoke motor.  Zeke posted a picture of the smoke unit, that's common in many of the LC+ products.

Great news, I may actually be able to do this! Perhaps I will surprise myself.

Cheers, Pete

This video from "Erics Trains may help, although it is for fixing a noisy smoke unit, it does cover opening up the smoke unit.  Starts around the 5 minute, 15 second mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ie1ByI3Z4Y

Give it  a try.

Recently, I disassembled a GP 35 Legacy and replaced the RCMC / RECEIVER / DRIVER .  Requested and received a few comments, plus and minus about the pitfalls of working on this Legacy Engine, no one told me not to work on it , only to be careful. 

One comment was: take pictures, not try to remember where every part went, this proved to be VERY important.

With all the comments in mind, the decision was made to give it a try, 

Currently my GP 35 Legacy is running around in circles, forward and backwards, horn blows, crew talk.

All is well.

Give it a try!!!

Brent

Here is a picture of burnt wicking:

I rebuilt the dual stack smoke unit in my Lionel VL Big Boy with the help of the fellas on this forum (lots of help); got all the parts I needed from Lionel parts; even got help from Jon Z.; it is not hard; did require soldering the fan leads from 2 new fans to the PCB which was the only hard part since my hands are not steady anymore.

Wow...I just have to tell it like it is. I’ve been participating in flight simulator forums for almost twenty years...and those guys have nothing on the folks here! Simply the friendliest and most helpful folks on any forum! Thanks again to all of you for your input and for never making me feel like there’s such thing as a stupid question. You guys are fantastic!

Cheers, Pete

PilotPete posted:

Simply the friendliest and most helpful folks on any forum! 

Helpful-yes.  

Friendly? -usually!! 

You will see us butt heads now and then too, but we almost always get over it!   😁

PilotPete posted:

 Thanks again to all of you for your input and for never making me feel like there’s such thing as a stupid question. You guys are fantastic!

No such thing as a stupid question Pete, just stupid answers.   We all started in the same place, neophyte.   I think once you get in there, you'll see that it's not really "black magic", just basic mechanical and electrical parts.