Hello all. This morning my Lionel Lionchief Mikado smoke quit again. I got this engine in 2013. I've got allot of run time on it. I like it because you can run it slow and it's a super good puller. Anyway I had put 12 drops of Lionel smoke fluid in before I powered it on. Then started running it slow and again it was smoking like a WWII destroyer. It was running for a two or three minutes. I was running two separate mainline trains. I then notices that the Mikado just had a wisp of smoke. I stopped it right away and added some more fluid. I heard cracking. So I assumed it was hot in the smoke unit. When I started running it again I had nothing.
Can you buy a smoke unit with the fan any where. Does anyone know where these units can be bought. I'm going to try calling Lionel service but I'll bet they want you to send them the engine and let them do the work. I'd rather do it myself. Been fixing Lionel trains sense the 1960's.
I also have MTH engines. I guess the train gods are against me this month. A week ago I was running my Pennsylvania railking F3's that have a smoke unit. The smoke unit was not working so I opened the power unit up and saw I had over filled the smoke unit. I cleaned it up. tested the power unit without the shell on it. She was running and smoking great. I put the shell on and hooked everything up and poof. I lost the control board. I pinched the wire between the battery and control board to the frame. So now I need a new proto2 control board. MTH does not sell them to john Q citizen. You must send the unit to them and they do the work. And you get a proto3 board. Plus you send at least $ 200.00 bucks to them.
So if anyone knows where I can get a smoke unit for a 3158 Mikado please let me know. I use to get parts from a guy named Harrison? But I've lost his number. I think he is in New York state but not sure?