Hi All, I bought this 220J cheaply on ebay from the USA a few years ago. When I received it, the fount was rusted through at the bottom. I eventually bought another fount and used it on Panel Wipe for a while but decided it would be a good candidate to convert to burning paraffin. I initially used the jet and pricker needle from a 200A and a brass spiral and spirit cup from a 201. The performance was less than stellar: white but not very bright and needing a lot of pressure. I lost interest for a while but after fettling the 231 recently, I looked at the J again with renewed interest. I started playing around with different Coleman jets and finally settled on a jet from an R55 gen. It seems to hit the exact sweet spot in terms of mixture. As the 231 has extra holes in the collar to increase air flow I added this feature to the 220J collar. The last step was to de-rust the burner frame and coat it with 800C VHT silver spray which had stood up well even to the heat of my 500 Speedmaster stove burner. It seems to keeps the 220J fount markedly cooler too.
I'm using a 220 gen tube and needle, an R55 jet and a 201 brass coil. I tried a 220 jet, but it was much too rich. Granted, all the jets I've tried are second hand, perhaps oversized but two different R55 jets have given the same optimal result. The light output of the 220J is now on par with that of each of the two 231 lanterns. What I forgot to mention is that I also replaced the original fuel-air valve/pickup tube with a soldered straight pickup tube. This seemed to ease the pressure requirements for good light output.
i was wondering if you removed the card board insert inside the tube as i have a 220-j i want to change over to run on kerosene ;it has been so long i have done this it seems i have forgot ;thanks
Yes, remove the jet & innards of the 220 gen, use the needle & a well worn/oversize jet of a 200A and just wind your own coil from 16-18 awg bare copper wire if you don't have a 201 brass coil handy. The 10 extra breathing holes in the collar do make a difference as does fitting a straight fuel pickup tube. The original 231 alcohol cup is identical to a 214 alcohol cup. You can also fit a 201 or 214 retaining clip.
thanks for the reply and now i see what i did wrong as it has been quite some years i made the switch and i did leave the insert in ;and i as well used a tip or rather the jet as some call it from a R-55 generator ;once pre-heated 3 times just to make sure the burners were hot enough ; i opened the valve and sad to say the mantles did not get bright more like a dim glow even pumping it up more it didn't change so back to square one ;so i will have to buy a 200-A 'i know most colemans are so much brighter and run longer on the kerosene rather than the top dollar fuel ;thanks again for the reply and explaining ;
i decided to keep the lantern as to burn on the fuel ;it is so bright with the 500 cp mantles ;thanks so much for the imput
