Hello, Me again. In a mad rush of blood to the head I bought an Aladdin 32 heater off E-bay and did a 100 mile round trip to fetch it yesterday. It has not been used for many years and had an accumulation of spider's webs and dead moths in the burner and wick tube. The good news is that the burner comes apart easily and the flame spreader is there. The bad news is that the wick is solid on the centre tube and will not budge! The carrier moves up and down about 5 mm but not the wick, which I suspect has rusted or gummed itself to the centre tube. I have tried PlusGas, red diesel, kerosene and WD40 with lots of heat from a hot air gun. No flames as I want to keep it! I cannot even get a 0.1mm feeler gauge beyond the step in the tube where the flame spreader fits. It looks as though there is a metal ring on the inside the wick, probably of steel, which has the barbs that lock the wick to the carrier. Is there any safe way to remove the carrier without the wick, so that I can at least get at the wick better, but without damage to the carrier? Any advice would be welcomed.
Hi, Thanks Jeff. I have added a pdf with pictures and comments. I spent some more time on it yesterday evening and I have now discovered that the wick does not have a metal liner (see picture). Better light and more patience! I have been able to insert a circle of brass shim about 10-15mm deep between the tube and wick, but it is still firmly stuck. I was wondering if the carier could be gently levered over the pins to get it out of the way so I can cut the old wick to remove it. I have seen a USA video where the wick had de-laminated and I suspect that this is the case here. That one came out quite easily though. I have a new wick on order, but still need to get this one out. The internal mounting for the carrier and winder seems to have been fitted before the fount was put together, so I cannot see how that could be removed with the wick and carrier in place to get access to the wick from the other end. I have access to various chemicals such as caustic soda, sodium percarbonate, acetone, red diesel, isopropyl alcohol etc. I have tried all but the first 2 and it is still stuck, even after applying a lot of heat from an electric heat gun. I don't really want to put caustic soda down it if I can avoid that as the fount on this one is steel with some rust visible inside. I feel that getting the residue out afterward could be an issue. Of course causitc soda will also attack any aluminium quite badly and the carrier seems to sit above an aluminum body inside the fount. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi. In the absence of any other ideas, I forged ahead with brute force! The wick had become supple after lots of diesel oil and and kerosene had been applied to it, so I tried to free it with a broken junior hacksaw blade but that stuck about 30mm below the centre tube. I had bought a new wick, as I thought that this one was well past re-use, so I dived in with pair of wire cutters and cut the old wick in 4 places 90 degrees apart, which allowed enough wick to get a firm grip with some pliers. After much tugging and pulling, the wick eventually started to come up the tube, and I was able to pull it free. The carrier also came up and was undamaged. It seems that the steel clips embedded in the wick had rusted to such an extent that they had expanded and become wedged between the carrier and the centre tube. These fell out of the wick well once everything else was out. The brass tube had noticeable black marks where the clips had been, and so a little kerosene and 220grit wet & dry paper was used to polish it up until it all looked like brass again. The wick tails sit in what I have called the wick well and presumably this fills with kero from the fount, or does it? In went the new wick, very carefully and in went some kerosene. I waited an hour then, with bated breath, lit the wick. It looked fine and was a nice blue for about 30 seconds then it died off gradually. I removed and re-fitted it with no improvement. Time for bed! I recalled that when I poured oil onto the wick & carrier, trying to free the old wick, the well filled up and stayed filled. I worked out that somehow oil must get into the wick well from the fount, either by some form of syphon or holes but could not see where this was After removing the filler cap, I blew hard into the fount and all that happened was that it stayed pressurised until I took my mouth away and I got a mouthful of kerosene fumes. I fully drained the fount again and removed the wick again. By holding the fount at an acute angel to the sun, I was able to look down the filler cap and spotted a black gungy thing about 3mm diameter on the central tube in the fount near the bottom. With a piece of 1/16" welding rod cut at about 45 degrees, I was able to probe the hole, and suddenly it cleared. Looking down into the wick well I could now see the end of the welding rod under the wick-winder rod. Amazing! In went some kero, and the well began to fill. Tipping the fount toward me, I could see a stream of oil coming back through the hole. I removed the level gauge in case there was another hole there, but there was not and probing around the well I could not find another hole. Back went the wick with a struggle. They seem to be a one-time fit really. It sort of worked but the edge of the wick had become carbonised and a bit had broken off so it was not level now. Judicious use of a sharp Stanley knife helped, then as in the instructions, I let it burn out and used the wick cleaner. I am just waiting for the wick to re-soak, then I will try again. 0582 shows the butchered (vandalised) wick. 0583 the inside face of the clips. 0584 the outside face of the clips (that go in the carrier) and 0585 the wick where one side of the clip located. The rust stain is where the clip was before I yanked it out. Pity about the wick, as it was in reasonable condition before butchery, if only it had been moveable! An experience all in all. Maybe this will help someone else.
Yes well....................... After a good soak it lit beautifully and burned a nice bunsen blue for about a minute then gradually the flame droped down. If I turned up the wick, the edge could be seen to be glowing red hot. It still looks like fuel starvation. I tried without the fuel cap on in case the diaphragm was stuck but that made no difference. It all came apart again today, and with the wick out, I probed a bit more and found that the hole from the fount actually feeds into a rectangular hole below the winder about 6mm x 10mm, so that bit must be double skinned as only a hole is visible through the filler cap. This is wierd. I cannot see any other feed points but I would expect that a hole about 2mm diameter must feed enough fuel to the well, otherwsie it would empty the fount pretty quickly. Half filling the fount gives a fairly rapid rise in the fuel in the well and the wick was well and truly wet when I got it out. Is it lack of air maybe? With the glow on the wick when raised and the impossibility to raise the wick enough to get a yellow flame, I would think fuel rather than air. This heater has the knock-over extinguisher but that all looks in order. I have now filled it to the full mark and it can sit until tomorrow. Off to play steam engine firing until about 10 pm tonight, so that will kep me busy.
After a good soak and another prod out of the feed hole it was better. Energetic use of the wick cleaner seems to have resulted in a good blue flame. I may need a new wick now as this one is about 4mm shorter than it was. But at least it is running now.
Hi, Still getting issues with what appears to be fuel starvation after a few minutes, however, my basket seems to be a bit high. This post Aladdin heater - is this the right place? shows the basket having about 3/16" lip below the thread. Mine is much shorter and the inner tube seems to be set higher than the rolled ring inside it. The two are shown in compare baskets.jpg I wonder if it is worth warming it up with a blowlamp, and trying to push the internal tube down to the lip where I think it should be. Hattersley says that the basket is the same for 15,16,27,32 & 37 so presumably they should all look the same. I have a Valor heater and that looks as though the basket top is quite a way below the flame spreader, as is the case with Aladdin mantle lamps, which are a bit like a small heater with a mantle on top. Does anyone have a picture of a later model basket thay can post please, ideally with dimensions? I am reluctant to fit yet another new wick and find the problem is the same. Just in case muck in the fount was causing issues (it certainly made it smell foul) I washed it out with a hot caustic soda solution. It went in clear and came out after about 10 minutes as in Gunge.jpg! The only slight issue is that the hot casutic attacks the paint, so be careful if you try this, and don't mix it in an aluminum pan. That gives off hydrogen gas and dissolves the aluminum very rapidly. I followed the caustic with water, then dried it off over my working Valor heater. Final rinse was with isopropyl alcohol which will mix with the fuel and also helps carry off any water remaining. What to do next? Maybe play with the basket height.
Well, I finally bit the bullet and stripped the basket apart. The original solder was higher melting point than electrical 60/40 lead/tin, so after cleaning and polishing the parts with wire wool I used lead-free plumbers solder which is higher temperature than the old lead-tin alloy stuff, along with the correct flux. Once fitted back together the basket was washed in water as the flux can be corrosive. I now had about 5/16" of tube visible below the basket. I can only assume that it was always like this and maybe why it never got used much. The new wick had had some battering with removing and re-fitting and was now too short to rise above the basket by more than about 1/8", so yet another one was fitted. It is getting better and after a while running and cleaning the wick, it now produces a lasting blue flame. What still confuses me is the fact that the chimney does not always sit square on the burner so has to be nudged sideways a bit to get a good blue flame all round. The is the next thing to sort out. Getting there! Trying to finds a good paint match for the fount, and it looks as though there is a very close BS colour readily available in aerosols. BS4800/525 seems to be the one. More later!
