My DASH 9/AC4400CW from the CP Grain Train has a blown smoke unit. (Bad eyesight and set in the ON position without smoke fluid). I’m an operator that prefers scenery creation to getting ‘under the hood’, but I’m willing to learn if it will keep me out of the service station! How easy or hard is the replacement?
[#welcome] aboard.
First off check your manual, it will show you where the screws are to facilitate the removal of the shell. Secondly, check the Lionel customer service site to see if they have an “illustrated parts breakdown” for your loco on-line. It will make things easier if and when you start opening things up. The smoke unit itself mite not need replacement just some tuning up. The link I am posting will give you some ways of trying to get the smoke unit going again by replacing the packing, which is probably pretty charred, and removing the “sock” on the element. Give it a read and see what you think as well as checking the Lionel site. After you take some looks you will have some info to help you decide if you feel comfortable trying this yourself or not.
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/111896/1292940.aspx#1292940
I replaced the whole smoke unit in my Lionel Lionmaster SD80 last year. Here is what I did.
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Removed the shell. Stared at it for an hour.
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Used the Lionel website to try to find the part. Didn’t find the part or the locomotive on the website.
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Wrote Lionel and email with the exact Lionel model number. Told them I couldn’t find the part.
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They told me that they didn’t have a replacement smoke unit for that model of engine, but…
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Lionel suggested using another part.
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I order the part they suggested for less than $20.
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Part arrived. I put it in the locomotive.
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Fan turned the wrong way. (A well documented problem with Lionel smoke units.)
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Reversed wires to fan. It worked.
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Put some smoke fluid into wick.
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Put shell back on carefully.
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Started engine up and turned on smoke.
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Cough…Cough…Smoke just poured out of the locomotive.
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Has worked perfect since, but I make sure I use the ALT 8 function to turn off the smoke.
I thought it was fairly easy to replace, but I have worked on other smoke units.
I agree, replacing the new smoke units in newer units are plug and play… if you can find the replacement part…its not like the old smoke units where you needed a magnifying glass to hand wrap the nichrome wire around the fiber / floss wick… if they touched the housing or themselves the smoke unit/nichrome wire would burn out and you would have to start all over… not fun. I have a scale 0-8-0 unit that the connector was loose and shorted out a strip on the circuit board… of course I cannot find the circuit board, and the complete unit is 50 dollars, so this unit has it smoke switch set to off.