i just added 5 drops of smoke fluid to a Lionel TMCC 4 4 2 Atlantic Steam. Train smoked fine before adding fluid. Now no smoke. Any ideas on what happened?
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Did you try blowing down the stack?
Bubbles, bubbles
Yes I did but this is one of those sleuth style smoke units.
Blake,
Those Seuthe units are a bit touchy...try turning up the power with the engine in neutral. The unit should come to life with a pop of smoke. Usually they work best with about 1/4 full of fluid. Too much fluid and they can't heat up enough to smoke; Too little and they burn out. If all else fails, turn the loco upside down over a papertowel and drain the smoke unit. Then, try again with only a couple of drops. That should solve the problem.
Seuthe units are very temperamental. Try turning it over and drain the fluid out and start over with the proper amount. My guess is too much smoke fluid.
Ok I made a mistake! This is a mechanical smoke unit and not a seethe. Any ideas on why this particular unit would quit smoking after putting on 5 drops of fluid in it?
Could be a few things. Might have added too much smoke fluid altogether, resulting in a stuck piston. Stack might be blocked. Air holes in the Smoke unit might be blocked. Resistor could be bad. But probably unlikely seeing it worked fine prior. Really need to take it apart and see what's going on. Even though it's mechanical you could try turning it over and see if any excess smoke fluid comes out. My guess still is a total of too much smoke fluid resulting in something sticking or blocked.
I just read that putting smoke fluid on a already hot resistor could cause some crystallization resulting in an inoperative smoke unit. Does that make sense to you?
It can over time, but it's not a digital effect, so one or two additions with smoke on shouldn't cause a major change.
Guess I’ll just have to open it up and see what’s going on. Thanks for the help!
Before you do that, you might want to run it for a while to see what happens — maybe 15 minutes at normal operations. If there is too much fluid in there, it will eventually burn off and start smoking again.
Also, which TMCC Atlantic is it. My Hiawatha Atlantic (6-38094) can take a while to get going after I add 10 fresh drops.
It’s an AT&SF Atlantic 4 4 2. Yesterday I turned over on a paper towel to drain for an hour but nothing came out. And I ran it in both TMCC and conventional modes for about an hour. My instructions say to press AUX1 and 4 to turn it on with a CAB1 but I have a legacy cab2. How do I turn on the smoke with this?
Blake Morris posted:My instructions say to press AUX1 and 4 to turn it on with a CAB1 but I have a legacy cab2. How do I turn on the smoke with this?
HUH? AUX1-9 turns on smoke on the TMCC, if you have a CAB2 and you're running in TMCC or R100 mode, the + key turns on the smoke. AUX1-4 will reduce the audio volume!
John I think best thing that I can do is to box all this stuff up and send it to you to fix for me.
Well, that's not going to happen for a few months, I'm packing everything up for a move! 
Ok John be safe
gunrunnerjohn posted:Blake Morris posted:My instructions say to press AUX1 and 4 to turn it on with a CAB1 but I have a legacy cab2. How do I turn on the smoke with this?
HUH? AUX1-9 turns on smoke on the TMCC, if you have a CAB2 and you're running in TMCC or R100 mode, the + key turns on the smoke. AUX1-4 will reduce the audio volume!
The manual states the AUX1-4 is during the programming phase (after setting the engine number) to restore the features.
