I have the 1990-91 Joshua Lionel Cowen UP Challenger that the smoke unit has worked fine. Output got low so I added 5 drops of Lionel fluid and it quit smoking. I ran it for about 5 minutes blowing in the smoke stack afew times and it did not start smoking. Any suggestions as to how to fix this and thankyou in advance.
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1990? This has TMCC? That's well before Lionel had TMCC, it was introduced in 1995. Do you have a model number? I'm assuming this has to be a later manufacturing date.
sorry, It is model 6-28099 and I think now year 2000-2001 anyway you have the model number on the box.
Now figure this out, after sitting 2 days in the off, no power mode, I power it up turn engine on and push button 9 twice and it starts smoking great. What happened or what did I do wrong to have it off and then after being dead for two days it now works great.
Now even stranger yet, It started running again smoking fine and then without me doing anything it quit smoking. I ran it for 5 minutes and no smoke. Any ideas what is going on?
When you turn down all the sounds, turn smoke on, and run the engine on speed step 1 can you hear the smoke unit fan pulse?
One of the biggest issues with fan driven smoke units is fluid will get on the fan itself and actually get down on the motor shaft. The motor will be spinning but the fan will not. The symptoms are exactly the way you describe it.
Solution is to disassemble the engine, get at the smoke unit. Disassemble the smoke unit. remove the fan blade, clean out all the smoke fluid and re-install. You might have to use a very small amount of super glue to keep the motor shaft from slipping on the fan blade.
I have this very issue with a MTH Challenger. Sometime it smokes very well, sometimes it just kind of sits in the stacks like fog.
Other cause might be a loose wire, or bad motor.
I believe this model has continuous smoke, no chuffing in the smoke stream. It uses the standard dumb 27 ohm smoke unit. The smoke unit fan won't pulse, it runs continuously.
I'd start by measuring the current to the track and then switching on the smoke unit and seeing if it changes. If so, it's probably the fan motor or the regulator on the smoke unit. If the fan motor gets soaked with smoke fluid and starts drawing more current, it frequently overloads the tiny regulator that powers the fan.
Can you send a video?
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