I have the Santa Fe AA and B units and have a deal of trouble with the smoke units. What has been others experience?
These diesels are prolific smoke fluid leakers. No matter how careful you are, most of the fluid will leak out around the perimeter of the manifold and drip all over the interior, soak the electronics, and run out all over the track, fouling the tires and making a mess of your track and other rolling stock. And all the while, the element is burning up the dry smoke unit interior. For every ten drops in, one drop gets to the unit. To make matters worse, fluid gets clogged in the manifold under the stacks, so the fan driven smoke unit pressurizes the trapped fluid causing it to either be forced between the manifold and body, into the shell, or alternatively, come splattering out of the stack, soaking your loco like you've been frying bacon. You may as well have one of those Williams suethe type units with the way it spits like an angry llama. Usually only one or two of the four stacks emits smoke while the balance are clogged with a meniscus from Lionel's "premium" smoke fluid. If you get some of that gas tank sealing goop from an auto parts store, you can seal all around the perimeter of the manifold and at least stops leaks into the loco interior.