As one who has cleaned and rebuilt my PE smoke unit numerous times, I use brake cleaner sparingly on the whole unit once I get it disassembled, then I blow or wipe it dry. If the wick is burnt, replace it. A whole replacement wick will fit in the smoke unit. You need to make sure that the 2 vent holes that go to the piston are not blocked. This will limit the amount of smoke the unit puts out. Look at the piston itself. I have seen burrs on mine and have used the fine side of a finger nail file to remove the burrs. These typically are on the open/bottom edge of the piston. The piston cylinder walls appear to have a slight taper (this is how the air gets to the top of the piston), when you put the piston all the way up in the cylinder it will get stuck. I haven't found a fix for that yet. As said earlier in this thread, find a slightly stiffer spring or stretch the OE spring to increase the tension to avoid the piston getting stuck in the cylinder, then reassemble. There is a solid bar that runs on the bottom side of the piston, this is what the lever pushes on when making the piston go up. Spring tension makes it go down. If your PE is the LionChief (or newer) don't change the value of the smoke element. I don't know what the decreased value of the smoke element would do to the motherboard, probably burn it out. You can overfill the smoke unit. The fluid will run out the vent holes in the bottom and gum up the piston and get fluid all over the bottom front of the engine (I know this as fact 
). When you replace the wick, add fluid to the wick counting the drops, when saturated (without running into the vent holes), stop. This will be the MAX number of drops you can add to the smoke unit. I also use a bright flashlight and look down the stack, when the wick appears wet and I can still see the vent holes, Stop. Once the smoke stops coming out from operation, I'd say no more than 10 large drops of fluid once you have to start refilling after a rebuild. You'll have to play with it. Also, one last thing, Make sure the smoke unit engages the boiler stack. Mine has on occasion been miss aligned and the smoke doesn't come out properly.
Hope this helps,
Chris
