OK. I'll try that. I am afraid that I've cooked the smoke unit because now it's not putting out anything t all. This Mikado is doing the same thing as my first one. It only lasted about 20 to 30 minutes. This second Mikado is about the same. It started out really putting out allot of smoke. It would drive you out of the room. After I parked it for a few hours and then tried again it slowly stopped working. After adding more fluid it only smoked if I ran it real slow and the smoke was real light?  Now I have nothing at all. I can feel the heat coming from the smoke stack. If I run it real slow I can feel the heat  smoke fan puffing. My first Mikado the smoke fan quit! The smoke heater worked but the fan stopped. 

I hate to take it apart it's new but this is my second one in two weeks that has failed?. I repair my MTH and old post war Lionel have for years. In fact I just replaced the wicks in my MTH Rail King Hudson, Torpedo and my smoking Pennsy F-3's. They smoke like WWII destroyers!!

The second time I ran The Lionel Mikado would not smoke at all so I added another 4 drops of fluid. I am using MTH smoke fluid. I thought they were all the same. MTH fluid works well in the Lionel Polar Express and all my post war engines?

I sure wish I knew what I was doing wrong. Wish I knew a real Lionel service engineer? I love this engine it kills me that she will not smoke!

Jack