Smoke Fluid Best For Post War 2046?

Smoke fluid will work. Add just one or two drops at a time.

Right. If the coil heater still works smoke fluid will work just fine. NO NEED to change it.

If you just acquired it, there is a good chance that there is still plenty of smoke material in the smoke unit. Run it for a while before you add any smoke stuff. It might start smoking. Hopefully the element is still good, and the unit isn't clogged.

With the exception of the earliest units, Postwar smoke units are fairly robust, and rarely burn out. When they are bad, its often because somebody poked something down the smoke stack.

http://www.megasteam.com/

Thanks, guys.

I did run it quite a bit when I brought it home. It did not smoke at all (I had not added any smoke fluid).

Is it OK to run these old engines without any smoke fluid/pellet? There is no on/off switch for the smoke unit, right? 

Thanks, Joe ... for Megasteam.com. This engine is going to be around the Christmas tree ... I'm going to try out some of those cool scents they offer.

Matt

If it still has the old smoke unit you can run it dry. Pellets or smoke fluid is fine. I use the Mega Steam. Aftet a few laps you can smell the unit and see if it appears to be heating. or just a drop or two of fluid will tell you if its working. It may need service, the piston may be stuck or the air hole may be stopped up.

Rob

As mentioned here, Mega-Steam works fine with older locomotives and those with pill type units. Just remember not to overfill the units...our rule is to imagine the amount the pellet would be if melted. That is just 2-3 drops! We have found with our own testing that our smoke fluid smokes better than the original pellets. Mega-Steam also cleans out the old pellet residue buildup while providing lots of smoke. Have fun!

It is also possible that the unit is clogged. When I worked at a Lionel Service Station, we'd receive PW units in for repair and 95% of the time, they were just packed solid with smoke pellet residue.

Remember - there's only a relatively small hole from the bellows up to the heater chamber. "Hey - the smoke is slowing down. Let's add MORE pellets!"  We'd often get about 1/2 a bottle of smoke pellet residue out of the smoke unit. Since at the time (mid 70's) there were no current smoke pellets being made, the SS owner was thrilled to save the scraped-out material.