Hi all I managed to get this today, she has the pre-burner but sadly missing the pin, which turns the seal to open the valve for the pre-burner to ignite. This seems to be the case with most X359, but not to worry she still looks okay and very very cheap also free freight so i'm happy to have another X359 with the pre-burner in my collection. In time I will polish her up and sandblast the frame then respray it, she also came with the deep globe and reflector so who going to complain not me. So here are some photos as is. Im happy so that's all that counts right?
Even if you had the missing pin (which I wouldn't think would be too difficult to reproduce and replace) the main problem would be finding a suitable material to make the moving gasket and get it to seal. That seems to be the Achilles heel of these lanterns and was why they were returned to Tilley in their droves (apparently) still under guarantee. Tilley eventually resorted to removing the blowtorch and replacing it with a blanking plug - which made for an expensive X246A with a fancy top...
@Buggerlugs you have a Very nice lantern there that will clean up well, I was in the same predicament as you with a broken pin but with a little tlc I managed to make one and get it working absolutely faultless , personally I love the blow torch/quick pre-heat attachment. Good luck.
@BigStevie, I actually have 4 now, 2 with pre-burbers, I did get that one going but same problem the bloody pin.
@Buggerlugs I did a fettle on one of these beasties some time ago. Here is the link to my fettle post, it may be of interest to you guys. Tilley X359 – Fettle Cheers Pete
