Hi all, Looking to tease the brains trust with this one, I'm at a loss. I'll do my best to give as much info but keep it brief too. I've got a nice 236, has had a fair bit of use but was pretty mint and came up nicely with a full deconstruction and clean. I initially rebuilt the generator on it, cleaned and removed old packing then wound the spring with bronze wool, this was no good the lamp burned erratically and lean, almost completely blocking one air tube cleaned it up, but I wouldn't settle for this. I then replaced the gen with a reproduction one that had no packing and a much larger spring, this ran like garbage with big flares and spluttering. At this point I double checked the fuel air uptake assembly in the fount, which I had cleaned, though it was sparkly clean to begin with. I enlarged the spring a little bit to ensure the needle was lifting as it should, all seems fine. I took the original spring from the gen, along with new cardboard packing and bronze wool wound around the top section of the spring and coupled that with the new repro gen tube, jet and needle. This has got the lantern running ok, mantle is burning clean and bright, however there is still an intolerable flicker much like a candle with a draft. There is also still a bit of a gurgling sucking sound which is periodic. I just don't know where to go from here and haven't come across a 236 before so don't know what I should be expecting, but I'm certain it should run better than this! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Using a bulbous mantle such as the Petromax or Anchor type of 500 cp., mantle rather than the Coleman 500 cp., mantle may help, as a more bulbous mantle should form closer to the vapouriser / generator and therefor keep it hotter.
Thanks Jeff, I hadn't considered this to be a potential issue but that's a good idea, I'll give it a go at some point, I've got a peerless 111 mantle on it now.
Flickering and gurgling, can be caused by not enough pressure in the tank. It needs like 40 good pumps,. Did u already check for anny leaks, Pump it up a little and let it sink Ina bucket of water, I had a leak at my fond with my petrolite, soldered it up, checked it, no leaks, filled it up with kero. And fired it up, And yeah it was loosing pressure again, so I had to solder it again,, so yeah, check on leakage
Thanks Loe, so far as I can tell with the 236 its not a direct pressure issue. There's no leaks, and yes if it's jacked up to 40 pumps it does perform better, the flickers become more rapid and less drastic, but I think this is not addressing the problem at all, since when fully heated it should run more or less the same as it slowly de pressurises. I will try Jeff's suggestion of a different mantle at some point, but I'm reluctant to biff the good peerless mantle that's on it too quickly in the hopes of some more insights! I'm looking at you @Tony Press
An update on this, I messed around with a few more configurations of generator parts and have found something that works well. I used the generator tube and jet from the new repro gen I purchased, the pricker from the old 236 gen, a spring and cardboard packing from a NOS 635 gen which I have a couple of, and then also wrapped some heavy paper around the top section of the spring to form another tube. Runs a treat. No choking required to get it to settle, there is still the slightest flicker but it's acceptable I think, and maybe they are just like this. It sounds a healthy hiss and very little burner noise compared to before.
