Alan Mancus posted:that's just a standard smoke unit and can easily be repaired you just need a new wick and replace the top gasket. as far as the short you said is concerned if there was a short from the element to smoke unit case you would have blown your engine board! the resister or heater element is normally centered inside the smoke unit tank so as not to short to metal unit! would only cost if you do the job Is the cost of the gasket and wick!unless you send to someone to get rebuilt. there not hard to replace!
Alan
The top gasket may be bad as well, but I was specifically talking about the one between the fan unit and the reservoir. There is a really tiny rubber one that is pretty brittle. I think that's where it may have been leaking from.
Also, "short" was probably the wrong word to use. It's not that the both sides were touching the metal reservoir to cause a complete short, but rather that one side or other was coming in contact with the wall of the reservoir, causing it to act like a heat sink. The larger metal surface area would then cause it burn cooler, resulting in less smoke output. I'm thinking because of that, the previous owner probably got overzealous with the smoke fluid.
I've watched some videos of other MTH Alco S-2s and mine was nowhere near the smoke output of what I saw.
