Smoke unit repair???

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XavierJ123

Member
Dec 17, 2004
240
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Lexington, Kentucky
My 4 year old grandson damaged a little Bachmann 0-6-0 which I managed to repair after three days of exasperation.:mad: It runs again but the smoke unit is not up to par.:cry: I took it apart again and noticed two thin wires from the headlight didn't seem to connect anywhere. :( Also, there is a teeny tiny black post in the center of the little square smoke unit with some more small wires attached to it from both left and right sides. Do these wires have to be "positioned" or "connected" in a certain way to heat up the liquid smoke more efficiently? :confused:
 
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petey

Member
May 17, 2004
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16
Hello,
You can repair the unit. The light wires do not "connect" to anything. They are pressed against the two halves of the engine weight, which carries the operating current. Once the shell is replaced on this weight, it should press the wires down onto the weight halves, one wire on each half. The wires on the smoke unit must contact this weight in the same way. The two "ears" on the smoke pot, are there just to make contact with its adjacent engine weight half. Manufacturer causes this to happen by winding one wire from the center post, so that the wire winding becomes thick enough to make contact with the weight. The plastic in these pots is attacked by the smoke oil, so that eventually the "ears" weaken and break at their atachment point. When this happens, although they may look OK, they aren't making contact. The fix here is to unwind the wire, discard the ear, loosen the weight screw(holding the halves together)and cram the wire between the pot sides and its respective weight half, w/o breaking it; tighten the weight screw, and you should have firm contact on each side. If the wire running from the center post is broken, it can be soldered with a tinned, fluxed, hot iron(flux the wire halves also). Touch the iron briefly to the wire.
 
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