@RickM46 posted:You are in the right place to determine the issue; hats off to this forum's members who walked me thru the rebuild of the smoke unit in my Lionel Big Boy step by step; much patience from them and pics; hats off to Lionel for all the parts; I did have to buy tools: Japanese Industrial Standard phillips drivers, Haako soldering station, Helping Hands soldering tool, wire, Youtube soldering videos.
I am hoping to find the problem and get it fixed, I have been looking forward to getting one of these for over a year and now that I do it's just disappointing a little bit. But yes you are correct awesome helpful members on here.