I have a Lionel B&O Hudson in my roster from around either 2002 or 2003. It was the first 0-27 starter hudson to have Railsounds. A while ago the smoke unit stopped perfoming and was wondering what could be wrong with it. I’ve read in the manual that smoke fluid must be kept in it at all times and I think this could be the problem, or as an indirect result of this, the wick in the smoke unit has “dried up”. Anyone out there know the cause or have a solution?
Could be a couple things. The resistor has gone bad or the wicking material is burned up. I’m not sure if this is a fan driven or puffer unit but either way some simple steps could make it smoke again.
Open it up and look at the resistor in the smoke unit. Lionel uses a sleeve on it, The theory is that it brings the smoke fluid up to the resistor to “burn”. These usually end up being a burnt, hard covering. Carefully remove it by cutting it off with small scissors or a exacto knife, Do not cut the winding on the resistor.
Remove all the packing in the resovior. I use tiki torch wicking to replace it. Put it in the resovior toasorb the fluid. Also I now take some and feed it around the resistor. This helps draw the fluid up to the heat. The thing to be aware of whetehr a puffer or fan driven is to allow the airflow to be un interuppted. I usually prime the new units with 24-28 drops of fluid.
While you have it open you can check the resistor to see if it’s open or non conductive with an ohm meter. Depending on it’s value you should see a fairly low resistance. Here is a page that help describe in pictures what I am talking about with the wicking…