Legacy Mikados - What's the Latest?

Our Mikado fell victim to the aforementioned problem after a few hours of operation. It was off to Lionel and back in a week!  Well -worth the $20 one way cost. She performs great since...

Sam

Did Lionel tell you what the actual problem was?

Mine ran great, sounded great, and smoked well.  The issue I had was the top of the tender would hit the back edge of the cab causing a derailment.   I ended up selling it for almost what I paid.  I hope to get another one soon and fix this issue since I felt it overall was a good runner.  

I have one and it smokes like crazy, never a problem. Great runner. Charlie ro still has them for a blow out price on his web site for 599.00. A great price for a very nice engine.

Some issue with the smoke unit itself from what I remember. They replaced it. It's not silent but not objectionable either.

Mine did the same thing when I tried to run it on the club's Fastrack layout - the tender hit the cab in the 048 curves...

 There is a small detail on the bottom of the cab that can be removed with a screw driver. Take off that small detail and put it away for safe keeping in case you sell the engine. That piece is what is derailing the loco.

Check out the rear truck as it swings and you will see the problem is. it did it to mine on O60 but not on O72. 

Thanks. My layout has one main line of all 072 so that won't be a problem for me.

The derailment problem is interesting, though, since the Lionel catalog claims that engine is good for 0-36. If I bought one to run on an 0-36 layout, I'd be seriously annoyed!

My main is O72 / O60 and it derailed on the O72 part of the layout.  Granted it is going up a 3% grade, but if the track was flat I doubt it would have an issue.  

I had hoped to run it on my mix of 036 and 045 Atlas layout.  It barely hit the smaller diameter but cleared the 045 okay.  I am concerned that smoker will quit now that it's out of warranty and I didn't run much because it didn't fit the curves as advertised.

Moral of the story for me is:  there's a risk in buying these trains and it's not a hobby for impatient people with an expectation that everything works as advertised.   Sometimes even patient people are challenged. 

Don't know about MTH & Weaver. Seems hard to believe they would encourage people to tear into their complicated engines without any training. That's a good way to really screw things up and cause very expensive repairs.

That's why Lionel doesn't want to encourage customers to start tearing open engines and pulling out parts. As an example, take a look at the recent thread about the Lionel S-2s and Mike Reagen's discussion about the dangers of opening them up and messing with them. Probably 99% of consumers would end up damaging the engine.

My Mikado is not a great smoker. I bought after seeing the video Alex made of his.

https://ogrforum.com/d...ent/5230909872208758

Unfortunately, while it was NIB when I got it I'm not the original owner.

Does anyone know exactly what Lionel is replacing??

Thanks!

My guess is that if a smoke unit is functioning ok, heating, fan operating and not noisy, that in most cases there isn't enough fluid. Many of the new legacy smoke  unit resoviors are are a bit smaller than previous TMCC ones.

Compound that with larger diameter hotter resistors ,and a more powerful fan and fluid needs to be added frequently. Smoke fluid only lasts minutes, 15 minutes of continuous operation is along time without adding fluid in my experience.

I suspect folks don't add enough fluid, or often enough, and run the smoke unit on the highest setting to get the most out of it which ultimately ends up charring the wicking from the lack of fluid and severely hampering peformance from then on.

I run all of my locos on the low setting and get plenty of smoke, when I don't, and I suspect a problem, another generous dose of fluid 15-20 drops minimum gets things smoking like crazy again.

If I'm not sure, I shine a flashlight down the stack of my steamers to see if the wicking is wet.

I keep thinking about ordering this engine as well, but then I dream about them releasing it with whistle smoke, or announcing a heavy mike.

Thanks to all who posted. I went ahead and ordered the Rio Grande version of the Mikado from Charles Ro. They have it on their website at $599 in Rio Grande, UP, and Erie. Not bad for an engine listing at $899, and Ro has a good reputation. 

I think I will test the smoke unit for a defective fan motor or whatever it is that sets off the three flashes by turning the smoke on and off a few dozen times without fluid. If I only leave it on for a few seconds it won't overheat, and I won't have smoke fluid residue all over the smokebox to complicate my repaint. (I plan to repaint it Milwaukee Road, and the Milwaukee always painted the smokebox black. Unfortunately all the Lionel versions have silver smokeboxes, regardless of what railroad they are painted for). From what I see in the info posted on this thread, the problem shows up in the self-test phase. 

At 600 bucks with Legacy, a better motor, and a fan-type smoke unit, this looks like a nice step up from the original K-Line.