VL BIG BOY Smoke wick replaced WOW!!

ok I had to try an experiment! seeing home is old and easy access to attic snagged a nice fresh piece of fiberglass insulation to use in all 3 smoke units on this BB.

I also learned how to remove the blowdown tube from the BB frame as the side blow down outlets are a friction fit.

after I removed them and the 2 screws holding the blowdown tube to frame and the red firebox feature pcb out it comes.

there is a raised area dead center of main tube so smoke will get diverted to both left and right side exit holes.

I am including a video and mind you the cab-2 is set to low smoke setting and what you see is what I now get.

I see others have videos but thought this one should be posted seeing that I'm using something other than what it came built with.

as a side note the heat sensor for smoke stacks if the optional cover is put in place has a small screw that holds the pcb in place mine decided to pop off and have no idea where it went so found a replacement in my spare parts bin.

Looks good.....i could live with that and be very happy!

-Pete

Nice results St. Paul,  good smoke output from all the right places.   Curious if anyone has ever gotten feedback from Lionel if they follow forums like these and make updates to there product.  

I have read many what appears to be valid concerns over the smoke output with some creative solutions like this.

Personally,  I'm not one to plop down thousands only to have to make creative fixes to get things running properly.

Subjective opinion on my part,  but reading these solutions,  as great as they are,  keeps me from diving into to far with the big L in purchases (honestly,  I don't buy that much these days anyway).   But would like to try something Legacy someday,  will keep my eyes and ears open,   who knows........  things will improve OEM Hopefully.

Mark

Nativefl..... yes lionel folks do see and reply to our threads on forum at times.

look for postings on this thread from santefefan he has been a big help so we understand how this was designed and how it should work.

he truly has been very helpful with insight into this issue and has shown that these do work as designed with a tweak er two.

thanks for looking at this thread hope you enjoyed all the videos as well.

Nice to hear that St Paul,  thanks................  keeping an open mind here.  Just saw a video of a Lionel NYC 4-6-0 with Legacy whistle,  wowsers........  great stuff.

Nice to have the resource of fellow train nuts like Santa Fe Fan to help.........

Mark

Looks great StPaul...

What smoke fluid are you using? and did you find the BD smoke unit sensitive to amount of smoke fluid (with the new fiberglass material) as I found mine was(my BD unit is factory stock at this point)?