Lionel 2026 smoke unit rebuild

Just finished one of these jobs.  I put wicking in the bowl and it works very well.

Most wicking will do, you can buy some from Lionel or I have used fiberglass batting from the attic which worked fine as well.

Lionel part # 691smkp008.

The gunk you scraped out of the bottom was the liner, saturated with smoke stuff.
The EBay lot you linked is a bulk package of smoke liners.

Your smoke element may or may not be OK.
You can use an ohm meter to figure that out.
If the unit was mine, and was still good, I'd try using heat to melt away the incredible amount of excess smoke stuff on the top half. I use a heat gun. Be aware that the parts will become very hot, and quite a bit of smoke will be generated.

While you have it apart, make certain the hole in that stack sticking up from the bottom is clear. Also make certain there isn't smoke stuff stuck between the die cast smoke pot and it's bracket. Finally, make certain the inside of the cylinder where the piston goes up and down is clean.

If the element is bad, reproductions are available.

Some very good suggestions, CW is always spot on.

I checked the part number for the smoke element, its 2026-29, it may be a bit hard to find (I did find it on the Train Tender's part list for $8), if your original did not work.  

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Of course, there is also the liquid smoke conversion option, in case the world's supply of pellets is used up. ( I know someone was making them recently, so maybe in 50 years or so).

Jim

I hear mixed reviews of the liquid conversion kits. Some have said that they are much more fragile and prone to heat damage compared to the original pill units. Also, the pill units can use liquid. I replace the pill unit's batting with a small wad of Lionel's current wick material. I spread it out (as per Mike R's video), wad it up into a ball and compress it right against the underside of the wires on the smoke element. Seems to work great with 3-5 drops of fluid.

I use the fiberglass batting material but triple it up(or more) under the nichrome element to keep the option of pellets. I use 16-20 drops of fluid easily and really saturate the fiberglass and I get good long smoke. The liquid elements/resistors, although available in many different resistances now, do burn out easier.  The nichrome elements usually don't fail at all until someone pokes at them and breaks them. Of the about 35 pellet steamers i have, maybe 2 have failed since 1947.

Oh, and if you do go with the liquid "kit" with the plastic cap and use a lower resistance element for more smoke, it almost always melts the cap into the smoke bowl.

Just for what it is worth, the traditional pellet type smoke units can be run with liquid without conversion. An added bonus of retaining the original pellet style units is they can be run dry without harmful effects. If you convert to a liquid unit, running it dry can cause it to burn out. All my steamers that shipped from the factory with pellet type units still have pellet type units and I only use liquid in them. Never had one die on me in all these years. The only failed smoke units I've had were only in newly obtained locomotives with abused smoke units that needed servicing.

One change I do recommend is adding the 2026-44 Smoke Piston Spring per Lionel's recommendation on locomotives that do not have one. 

I agree, if the element gets hot keep it around till it doesnt. 

  The felt  disc "pacman" works best for pellets imo as the residue rides the top more.  It still wicks fluids well enough to work, but fluid can likely wick easier up stringy batting better (10x fast, lol).

  The residue in there may have been useful. I've scraped it off and dumped it back in to rekindle the smoke my whole life. Even if it is depleted, it melts and can trafer heat to melt the gunk more, starting the wicking "deeper" & faster.

Cleaning the air hole can be done with a stiff wire when the piston is removed.

You should check the alignment of the cylinder hole to the basin hole, they can get twisted. I also like to seal that cylinder to basin mounting seam to see if  air pumping  improves. (sometimes it is too turbulent and it suffers at different speed, it is a balance to find )

I have a 2026 that I converted a while back. It works great with the liquid unit. I can understand keeping the pellet unit since you have a complete set. Run it till it dies (maybe never).

On lighter locomotives, like the 2026, without magne-traction, I remove about 2 turns of wire. At track speed the element doesn't get hot enough and melts the pellet, but doesn't vaporize it very well and drips the molten material over the unit and drips down and freezes the piston.

Everything you ever wanted to know about PostWar smoke units:

http://www.olsenstoy.com/searchcd31.htm?itm=629

Chuck Sartor posted:

On lighter locomotives, like the 2026, without magne-traction, I remove about 2 turns of wire. At track speed the element doesn't get hot enough and melts the pellet, but doesn't vaporize it very well and drips the molten material over the unit and drips down and freezes the piston.

That would be overfull or wicking at the air intake's tip up high in the well. That tip has to be clear of wicking touching its hole to avoid leaking pellet oils. I can't recall mine ever leaking unless I used too much fluid. 

  The pellets were my preference because they lasted longer and there was always a little smoke once hot, even if you ran out of pellets.

I have some older reproduction smoke elements that had too much resistance. When I use them, sometimes I remove one or two turns of wire to get them into the proper range. Other times I remove the nichrome wire and rewind the unit with lighter wire.

I'll have to check my notes to be certain. I think the correct resistance range for Postwar smoke elements is about 12-15 ohms. UPDATE: my notes say 14-16 for a new element.

The values on a well used one can be 10 to 18 because the resistance of the wire can change as the elements age.

Be aware that in the very beginning Lionel did use two different smoke elements for O and O27. I don't think it would be necessary or desirable to remove any windings from the early 027 ones. Those elements might be found on small pot smoke units (cover goes OUTSIDE the die cast pot). Those early elements were prone to burn out.