I have the not so venerable Lionel 18003 Lackawanna Northern but mine works well. The smoke output leaves a lot to be desired, however. It has a piston arrangement. What can I do to make this puppy puff? Thanks in advance.
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Did you get your engine to puff?
It puffs, but with the anemic output that has been mentioned here many times..
You could see if you could fit a fan-driven smoke unit in there.
Where would I find that? I am not mechanically inclined and when I bought the 18003 I had to have it repaired as has been mentioned here a lot. Since that fix in the late nineties, it has run like a champ. Just missing great smoke out put (and that bad whistle). I was hoping to add an Atlantic Electric RR sound system in there some day. I love the loco but am not to great on fixing complex things.
Hi Potrzbe, I had a problem with poor smoke output on my Northern. What I found was the cam on the front axle was stripped. This prevented the smoke lever to cycle up and down thereby no air pumping was taking place. Thanks to a suggestion from Rob I was able to use an adhesive called CA to cement the cam onto the axle. I now have great pumping action on the smoke unit. This may be the fix you are searching.
Look at all those parts! Do you know which one is the cam on the front axle?
The cam does not appear in the diagram. The 671-182 cam is the part I got from jeff Kane at the Train Tender. So far Rob's fix of using CA adhesive is working great with about 15 hours of run time. The first thing to do is to remove your shell and see is the cam is slipping on the front driver axle. If you need help give me a call and I'll talk you through the process.
