Hi everyone! My name is Joel, from the French speaking part of Switzerland. While walking around town, I noticed a pile of junk in front of an old woodworking workshop, in it was what looked like a pressure lantern. I asked the owner and got home with this poor Canadian 243B that has had a hard life for sure. Group shot with my 282. (Hope you are all jealous of my sewage plate) Looks like it had the old tin foil reflector hack done at some point. Out in the trash it went. The ventilator is bent to the point of it being concave, to accommodate the taller globe. So the globe is not original and broken, it looks one from a wick kerosene lantern. I Have a type 550 globe laying around. That should fit, right? Also, the ventilator screw goes in this nut/extender thing that screws in the burner. I tried to bend the ventilator back but it still does not secure the globe, by far. Could a 243B owner take photos of the ventilator mounting please? It seems that every photo or video on the web omits this point. Here is what I got: Have a nice week-end :-)
Welcome Joelc! That was a great find even if it has been abused! Good luck getting it back together. I am not a Coleman expert, but I think there's a couple of Coleman Parts sites on the web! Plus there will be a lot of help on here.
Thanks everyone, I did more tickling with it and found that if I screwed the weird nut above the ventilator, it looked about good 'nuff for a small country like ours. I tried it with bad pump gas and Lo and Behold! It lit strong and well! After time, the generator started glowing red near the mantle, is it normal? Oh, and it's 282 friend works nice too. The check valve was not checking anything but a night soaking in WD40 just reminded her her job.
@Joelc Can you photograph the generator (cold) where it was “glowing red”? Did the light output change? You need to give the burner a good clean and make sure the air tubes are clear. I wouldn’t use too much ordinary automobile gasoline in that lantern. It will end up clogging the generator. Cheers Tony
Thanks for the answer, here is the photo. You can see the spot just beside the mantle. No output change whatsoever I already gave it a clean before. I did not see any blockage. I need to find a source for white gas, not very common here.
You might look for alternatives to white gas like naptha based brake cleaning fluid or panel wipe, another naptha based hydrocarbon that can be used as fuel. Both these are much cheaper than Coleman Fuel and won't clog up the generator with the residue of the additives they put in automotive fuels.
I found some alkylate gasoline at a hardware store for around 15$ for 5l. It looks to have a good press for lantern use. The 243B is coming back to her homeland at a fellow collector. Thanks everyone for your help :-)
