Lionel W&RR General smoke unit

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how I can make my General, smoke better, it smokes but you can hardly see the smoke come out. Thanks

[wrmcclellan]

What vintage is your General? PW or modrn era (makes a difference so we know which type of smoke unit you are dealing with and its age).

Disassembly and cleaning will be the first step regardless of vintage.

If it is an older smoke pellet type, making it smoke better is definitely a cleaning out chore. Piston and air hole being clean are critical.

If it is modern era fluid type, making sure nothing is clogged is the issue (where the piston pushes air through the unit.

Regards,
Roy

[Chris F]

Roy, the 1872 General introduced in 1959 already used the liquid smoke unit (the first loco to use one was the 746 "J" in 1957). Here's a link to the Postwar version:
http://pictures.olsenstoy.com/searchcd31.htm?itm=137

I found it interesting that the external handrail carried current to the headlight and smoke unit. Corrosion on the handrail might result in low voltage to the smoke unit. It looks like the rails going down to the pilot supply the ground path, so corrosion could be an issue here, too.

Here's a parts breakdown of a modern General:
http://www.lionel.com/Products/ProductNavigator/_ServiceDocuments/5109_combo.pdf
The smokestack assembly is different, but the light bulb and air plunger are the same. Unfortunately, this parts list doesn't provide much of a clue as to how the light/smoke unit receives power. As noted, cleaning the air plunger and stack chamber may help, along with ensuring that the air plunger is being operated properly by the twin piston assembly.

Another potential problem with a newer General is that the DC motor draws requires less voltage than the old AC motor, so the smoke unit may not be seeing the voltage it needs to produce much smoke. Adding cars to the General's consist would increase the voltage; I don't know how to decrease the voltage requirement for this smoke unit.

[lionelsoni]

A way to get more voltage to the smoke generator is to lose some of the voltage to the motor. Then the track voltage, which is also the smoke-generator voltage, will be higher for the same motor voltage. There are several topics on the forum describing how to insert diodes in series with things to drop some voltage. In particular, there is a trick that uses brigge-rectifier units to get more voltage drop from each unit.

[Anonymous]

I would like to thank everyone for thier responses, I am new to this group and have already received so much valuable information.

[spankybird]

HA, but will it ever smoke like this

[Anonymous]

aj270,

i have the "circus general" produced in '90 or '93. it smoked fine before and after i wore it out. i bought a new one, and it seems to smoke like yours (not what one might expect). i think some might just work better than others. the replacement smoke maker is only ten bucks (care to experiment?)

when i want to impress friends with the smoke, i fry the smoker with high voltage while in neutral, then shift to forward and get a few good puffs before it levels out to the lionel style smoking.

don't expect so much, and you will be less disappointed.