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#Post#: 2420--------------------------------------------------
Lionchief smoke unit stopped working again
By: pjdog350 Date: June 8, 2020, 7:03 am
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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?
#Post#: 2421--------------------------------------------------
Re: Lionchief smoke unit stopped working again
By: TrainLarry Date: June 8, 2020, 11:17 am
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The smoke unit is part #680-1295200
See here for the parts breakdown of your locomotive:
HTML https://www.lionelsupport.com/ReplacementParts/index.cfm?startRow=26&PRODUCTID=91acaec7-a09e-4de2-8456-43237e3aa97f&DOACTION=productPartFilter
The smoke unit is sequence #39 on the list and available from
Lionel.
Larry
#Post#: 2422--------------------------------------------------
Re: Lionchief smoke unit stopped working again
By: pjdog350 Date: June 8, 2020, 4:30 pm
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Thanks Larry. I had a friend in Louisiana named Bill Harrison.
He was a good parts supplier. I just sent him an email asking if
he had that part number.
I looked the unit over and it's smoking fine. But the fan motor
has stopped. I did get it working again for maybe 25 seconds but
it failed again. So we will see what happens? I sure loved this
little Mikado. It's a super puller and didn't cost much. Perfect
to run with post war Lionel stuff.
#Post#: 2440--------------------------------------------------
Re: Lionchief smoke unit stopped working again
By: pjdog350 Date: June 25, 2020, 5:53 pm
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I ordered a Mikado smoke unit from by friend in New York that is
a Lionel parts supplier. He said a 3 week wait. After a couple
days I called Lionel support and got the parts folks. Ordered
the 6801295200 as shown on the parts diagram for the Lionchief
Mikado 3158. Got in a week (yesterday). Didn't get a chance to
install the unit until this morning. The little screws are a
real problem getting them out and back in. Cause I had to use a
super little screw driver to fit then my old fingers didn't have
the power to back the screws out? So I did a pair of pliers
holding the screw driver handle and finally got them lose. After
removing the old unit and installing the new unit. Using the
pliers and super small screwdriver I managed to get the job
done.
I was not really comfortable the unit was the real problem and
if this new unit didn't work I was going to buy another Mikado
and call Lionel to fix 3158. I've seen allot of posts on the net
with smoke unit failures and a new unit not fixing the problem.
Seems like the board that controls when the fan motor should run
was the problem. I even called Lionel to see if that board was
available. I took the Mikado to the layout with out the casting
on the frame so I could watch the fan. Low and behold the smoke
unit worked great. So the fan motor was the problem in my case.
Big thanks to trainlarry for the information and link to the
Mikado diagram. Id like to add that after the postman left the
smoke unit in the mailbox the Fedx man shows up with my smoking
MTH Pennsy F-3's.
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