Experiment time: Lamps that run with Kerosene no mods.

The other day I picked up a 90's double mantle 282 Dual Fuel lamp, After a little clean up couple mantles filled it up and like a champ fired right up!
Then I asked myself "Wonder if this can run on Kerosene?
Had a gallon of 1-K but no pre heat cup, so i just tied a small strip of fine steel wool to the base of the generator drained out the gas and filled it with Kero gave it a few pumps squeezed some denatured alcohol on the wool lit it up and let it heat up.
Turned the knob slowly and she fired right up like it was running on gas, it ran for five hours.
So now i went and tried my Special Edition Powerhouse, same thing fired right up.
Next I tried my two 220J lanterns and fired right up.
None of them needed any Generator mods just something to get the Generators heated up..
Does anyone know of other Coleman gas lamps that run on Kerosene without messing with the jets?
The 220J is still running in the garage no sputter no pulsing or loss of light or Kerosene crud building up inside the mantles.
I prefer Kerosene over white gas as it's less volatile, easy to find bright output and frankly I like the smell of it when it's burning.. Smells like an Air show with jets!

 

@Peter Lucchini
That’s useful information from your experiments. Thank you for sharing.

A few of us here have been converting some Coleman lanterns from white gas (Coleman fuel or Shellite) and usually it involves changing the generator or the jet to a slightly small jet hole size. The addition of a preheater spirit cup is an essential along with adding springs or brass mesh into the generator for thermal inertia to help prevent pulsing etc.
Cheers
Pete
@Norman @ColinG

 

Makes and burns it’s own gas from common gasoline or kerosene.


Larry

 

A bunch of different pre-heater cups are available from Old Coleman Parts to fit most generator widths plus, if you're handy in the workshop you can make your own from copper pipe end caps and small bore brass tubing. Old bullet casings are a great source of small bore tube but silver soldering (silbrazing) is better that either plumber's solder or electrical solder as it melts at a far higher temperature.

I made this pre-heater cup for a Coleman 128c







Here's one I made for a Coleman 220 - can't remember which one exactly but I used a brass engine core plug and some brass tube I found.



Like you, I prefer using kerosene over Coleman fuel for a number of reasons but I usually keep any parts I've swapped over so I could return them to their original state if I ever wanted to.

I guess I should mention that running a white gas lantern on anything else will very likely be frowned on by some collectors, not that this bothers me, particularly with Coleman lamps as they have extra safety features as standard.

Hope you find this useful.

PS
Doing the reverse... ie running a lantern designed for kerosene on white gas, is definitely a very bad idea unless you're running some tests and even then you need to take great care.

 

While I've never tried it I bet you could use a Tilley preheater torch and start it with the vent and globe off.

 

You definitely could and I've done it but for long term use I prefer sourcing/making a pre-heat cup.

 

Yea I do too. I've ran almost everything I've got on kero.

 

No need to run kero in lanterns intended for white gas, I use my kero models for kero. I did do a kero mod for a 220K, but with my growing number of older lanterns, sold that one at a yard sale this summer. Still have lanterns taking up more space than I'd like, but then like stoves, so many neat models out there. Collecting has slowed way down this year, just cherry picking now.
Duane

 

I do it because not only is kero much cheaper but Wal-Mart is the only place still carrying camp fuel near me and you have to be lucky to find a can on the shelf.