Cleaning a smoke unit the American Flyer way.....maybe

[Buckeye Riveter]

I found on the below referenced web site this statement:

You can attempt to clean out a smoke unit, by filling it with Smoke Fluid and letting it stand overnight without use. Then turn the engine over, placing a cloth under the engine and allowing the fluid to drain back out.

From web page: http://hightechsearch.org/Trains/id23.htm

Will this work for O Gauge Trains? [?] Better questoion, does it work? [?]

Since it is on the internet it must be true. [}:)][:0][;)]

[spankybird]

Buckeye, I have never heard of doing that. I would think that it would NOT help as the wick and reservoir is below the heating elements. I would be more afraid that the fluid would overrun the reservoir and onto the internal parts of the engine.

tom

[ben10ben]

American Flyer units are quite a bit different than Lionel units. In an American Flyer unit, the resevoir is totally separate from the heating element. The wick consists of about two feet of stranded fiberglass with about 20 turns of nichrome wire wrapped around the center of it. Only the small part with the heating element is kept in the top chamber, and the other 1 foot and eleven inches of wicking is crammed into the bottom chamber.

Sometimes, fluid will get stopped up in the wick on the way between the two chambers(especially if using a thick fluid like Supersmoke), and a good heavy dose of a lighter weight smoke fluid will unstop it to the point where it will work again.

This procedure won't work with other types of smoke fluid, because they're a totally different design.