Hi chaps. I've just bought a lovely old X246. I ordered a service kit and have rebuilt the pressure pump which now works really well. (However, the large rubber seal that seals the pump when you screw it in has hardened and a new one wasn't included in the kit for some reason.) I've only managed to get it to seal by adding a film of grease. Comments on this are welcome. I'm now rebuilding the control cock assembly and have got a bit stuck. I've never had or even operated a lamp like this before. Am I missing the burner or does this lamp not have one? All I have is a stem with a valve on the bottom which opens and closes the route to a pinhole at the top of the stem. It is operated when assembled by the knob on the control cock. There is a loose collar that has a male thread that is sliding up and down this stem. How does the mantle fix to this stem that I have? Can anyone point me in the next direction? Thanks.
Oh I feel silly... I've just found the burner inside the top cowl that I removed and placed safely to one side! Ha. Still. Any advice is welcome to help me on my way. Ta
How old is your X246? If it is a "pork pie" model, the pump may be one of the older ones which has a different size washer to the newer X246 (look in the Lamp Reference Gallery). You can get the 'older' washer from The Fettlebox. I have an old Tilley manual that I can send a .pdf of if you send me you email. It is a good guide to fiddling around with Tilley lamps.
Without "pictures" of what you have we are shooting in the dark here but it sounds like the piece sliding should be screwed into the bottom of the burner assembly which you said is in the hood. Read through as many fettling and other posts, you will find pic`s of your lamp use the little Google search below the Fettle Box Advert and enter Tilley x246,x246A or X246B or look for same in (Reference gallery) England - Tilley to identify yours.
Thanks guys, It turns out that the supplied seal washer for the pump assembly did fit with some persuasion. It was quite small looking but does the job well once on. Maybe i was just being too timid. The sliding cuff does indeed screw into the bottom of the burner. I'm missing the meths pre-heater so I made one from a wound rag and some wire. I heated the lamp and got it lit. It burned well with a solid output I've now ordered a little jar and a proper preheater from eBay. The PDF manual would be great please, I'll PM you my email address. I'll upload some photo's later.
If anyone has any information about this lamp and how old it is I would be interested to know. Thanks.
Welcome aboard! That's an early 1950's Tilley Guardsman lantern and it's a good reliable lantern, Jeff.
1950-1954 See the links to the various versions of the X246 in this thread: http://0flo.com/index.php?posts/30045 Ah, Jeff, our posts crossed. Cheers Tony
Thanks for the info. I received the PDF manual. Fantastic to read. Thanks. Last night after I finished playing with the lamp I extinguished by releasing the pressure. I hung it up in the workshop and went to bed. This morning it's made a mess of itself. The control cock and stem was covered in paraffin and it was dripping down over the font. I think I must have left the control cock valve open. I released the pressure via the pump/ filler then re-tightened it. So pressure might have built up again because of heat in the vaporiser and parin squirted out a little and dripped down. Possible story? I'll not do this again, I'll leave it de-pressurised with the stop cock turned off and the pump screwed in loosely and see what happens.
