Gentlemen: I mentioned this at the end of my last thread but as there was no reply I'll try again under a new heading. My 236, testing without a mantle, gives me a nice blue combustion cone, but every few seconds she sends out an orange fireball which is obviously some un-vaporized fuel and I'm wondering what I can do about it. My generator is a piece of brake line (because it comes already flaired) and the jet is a hypodermic needle brazed in. Some issue there? Or something down south in the fuel pickup? I threw some supplemental heat on the generator in case the steel line wasn't transferring enough heat -- no luck. I'm out of ideas. Thoughts?
In my mind brake line is pretty thick, and being steel harder to transfer heat to vaporize the fuel. What are you using for supplementary heat source? May take a hot torch to do the job. A mantle, globe, and vent will make a big difference has far as keeping the gen hot
I just threw a propane torch flame onto the line to make sure it wasn't that problem. What bugs me is that the orange fireball is intermittent, when she's burning clean she's just fine. Somehow, raw fuel is getting past the orifice -- or so it seems. Someone will know what this is about. I just now got my replacement globe (special order) from the hardware store, I'll throw that on and, as you say, it might make the difference.
Something else that can cause an intermittent flare up like that is something other than fuel going through the generator. A good example would be water or some other fuel that doesn't vaporize like white gas/naptha will. I've forgotten to flush my gens in the past after a citric soak and experienced odd flare-ups until it was burnt off.
I thought of that, but the tank is well flushed. I think I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and by another generator rather than experiment with hypodermic needles.
Do you have any type of packing in the generator? Like a pricker rod, wire coil or brass mesh. These help vapourisation of the fuel.
I never thought of that. No nothing. The cleaner pricker was long gone so I took the mechanism right out. I just ordered another one on OCP, too bad about paying over sixty bucks Canadian, but it is what it is.
In the meantime, if you have some brass mesh, make a roll and insert it in the brake tube. Just to see what effect it has.
