Lionel smoke unit help on PRR k4 5385 SKU: 6-84115

First off, 8 drops of smoke for a dry unit is not NEARLY enough.  My experience is for a dry unit it's more like 30 drops.

Is that true for all new MTH and Lionel engines with smoke units made since year 2000?

In my experience the instructions for these modern engines typically say for a brand new engine to add either 8 to 10 drops, or 10 to 15 drops of smoke fluid.

In other words, does  the amount of drops of smoke fluid for a modern engine with a dry smoke unit depend on the engine?

The reason I ask the above questions is that in my experience, there can be problems if one drowns the smoke unit with too much smoke fluid.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

First off, 8 drops of smoke for a dry unit is not NEARLY enough.  My experience is for a dry unit it's more like 30 drops.

Well sometimes I add 10 drops. I do this, Run the engine for a bit then after I'm done add a few drops because adding 30 on a used one will possible damage the electronics 

I tried the Bill Yates suggestion . It didn’t smoke but it was bubbling. You think it needs the tubes cleaned

Who's Bill Yates and what did he recommend?

Arnold D. Cribari posted:

The reason I ask the above questions is that in my experience, there can be problems if one drowns the smoke unit with too much smoke fluid.

This is very true, but a dry smoke unit needs quite a bit of fluid to smoke properly.  I typically start with around 20-30 drops, actually around 1/2 of the Megasteam dropper for a dry unit new or after a rebuild.  When smoke production falls off, I do the same again with about 1/3 of a dropper full.

When I've rebuild smoke units, sometimes I soak them before assembling, and I easily put most of a dropper into a typical Lionel or MTH smoke unit to fully saturate the wick.

Note that the "standard" smoke unit for MTH and Lionel has the capacity to handle the above recommendations.  However, there are smaller smoke units that have a much smaller bowl, those obviously require less smoke fluid.

I watched a video about to handle the blow down smoke and Bill Yates was doing the narration.’

He advised to take the lid off where you put in the smoke for blow down unit

then he hit Aux-6 button continuously.

it took some time to see the smoke coming out. He said not to put the lid as soon as u see the smoke but let it really get going. Initially you see him put the lid on and then the blow down looks like it is not putting out anything but after whatcto me seemed a long time you see the smoke coming out in good amount

its all on the U tube. I was amazed.

i tried it but all I got was little bubbles

coming out the input hole but no smoke

perhaps I didn’t do it long enough

If you're talking about the VL-BB, there is a pretty long tube from the smoke unit to the blowdown outlets.  Sometimes it takes a pretty good puff of air or even two to clear out bubbles in the line and allow it to work properly.  If there are bubbles in the line, I seriously doubt that allowing the unit to run out the fill hole will do anything.

It impressed me to see the smoke coming out of all three places.

when he put the lid back on it actually slowed the smoke down that was coming out the blow down tubes for a short time and then they picked up.

it took a long time.