Innards of Lionel VL Big Boy

Excellent!  Between you and Alex there is a lot of good info in these threads.

The saturated wicks will make a huge difference in how this thing will smoke.  Post a video if you can.

I didn't realize they used Pittman motors in these. 

The wiring/blow down unit contacting the flywheel concerns me, I may open mine up and check.

Recently I've been working on scratch building a steamer-I have a new appreciation for everything I see in the pictures.  Lionel did an amazing job getting all of that 'stuff' in there!

+ 1

Forgot to mention that in my reply.

Here are the VL BB two engine gesarboxes gears. The brass one is the front engine, the steel on is the rear engine, maybe there is more stress on the rear hence the use of steel, but I doubt it. The gears are heli cut for smooth quiet and efficient operation, Good Lionel.

Every time I see one of these taken apart I am more convinced that I shouldn't. Even though the engineer in me is saying the opposite. 

Did you see Alex's great thread on the same topic?

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...boy-tons-of-pictures

Hi John, had I seen his thread I may not have added my post. I just wanted to share my findings. If you think I should delete my tender and loco posts due to redundancy and to save band width, I shall do.

I'm not suggesting you delete anything, just figured you'd like to see what he had.  Any information is always good.

Sam E.

Relative to:

The main stack units, note the sensors. I tried to center the heat element in the reservoir. I also moved the sensors about 2 mm away from the heat element thinking it may improve the smoke quality, I think it did but I have no qualitative data to support such claim .

Folks, be careful moving the sensor away from the element.  I spec'd the distance carefully to the factory.  If you move the sensor out of alignment, you may get a cab light flash error.  The smoke servo I designed will look for "time to operating temp", and stop the heating process and fault out if the temp is not reached in time.

The sensor is used to get the element up to temp and hold the heating at a max temp.  the sensor does not regulate temperature.  The sensor resolution is "too crude" for the requirement to shade smoke based on labor.  The fluid and batting material type is also part of the "servo loop", and if you change the batting material on the temp controlled smoke units, it may damage the smoke system.

Note: the crusting/residue in the batting is not burnt batting material as thought by folks on the forum.  It is the byproduct of combustion, you are burning oil!  All batting types will suffer from residue buildup, and this is why recommend our premium smoke fluid as it burns fairly clean.

No parts list for this engine on lionels site makes me not happy.. I guess you will be doing this with all lionel visionline engines in the future?

Jon, job well done.

DON"t misunderstand I think these are great threads . .. I just would not take them apart.

Thanks its neat to see the inside.    I understand it more if i ever have to work on mine.    I just wish lionel would bring the manufacturing over here instead of china i hate the long wait and my money going over seas.

Aha, now that's an answer to a question I have been asking - about whether there's any real reason apart from sales that Lionel recommend their premium fluid - and maybe sheds some light on another and very long thread where people were speculating on why the Lionel premium fluid seems to evaporate much so quicker in its container than other brands.

So now I am glad I used in my BB but that hasn't made the blowdown feature function as it should. Surgery may be called for when I finally run out of patience with it.

I've deleted the part of Jon's reply that refers to the calibration of the smoke unit by reference to the batting used as well as other components. Trouble is even if you want to use the pre-cut batting these engines come installed with it's not available from Lionel.

P.S. Marty is right - Thanks as always to Jon for putting us in the picture.

The white rope style batting hasn't left any residue in any of my old TMCC engines, like the precut batting does after minimal run time. Lionel used to use the white rope style batting, but have switched to the precut stuff... WHY? Lionel sells replacement batting in the form of the white rope stuff, which we all know out performs that new stuff.

This is 10 years old, burnt to a crisp, even the resistor, but no residue left in the bowl.

This stuff was in my S3, which didn't have nearly the run time as that 10 year old rope batting, it crumbled apart, and there was crusty residue in the bowl which had to be scraped out.

Burn, evaporate...call it what you want. The white rope batting should be used in all new engines. I guess we all should just send our Vision Line engines in to Lionel to get them to smoke properly  

LOS, which batting are you using? Lionel or MTH? part numbers? I looked on Lionel site but could not locate the smoke batting. How much batting does one use? smoke units are different sizes. Also, what smoke fluid are you using. Thx a lot!

Check HERE  .... 4th post down is the part #

I use Mega Steam, Lionel Premium and the new Smoke Cloud

MegaSteam... great smoke output, lots of flavors

Lionel Premium--even more smoke output...stinks bad

Smoke Cloud-- the most smoke output by far... no flavors, but not as stinky as the Lionel stuff 

This is the S3 smoke unit I rebuilt with 2 - 8" Lionel smoke batting replacements. 1 - 8" piece on each side of the divider.

Also notice the long tube for the cylinder steam. It' not much shorter than the blow down tube for the VLBB, if at all. This thing smokes like crazy now. So if the smoke unit is putting out a ton of smoke like it should, the length of that tube won't matter.