Hello I am in need of a new Vaporizer for my M320. It was a great nightly running lantern then one day it started clogging the jet a bunch and when I shut it down to refuel noticed it had a swollen mantle support. After working on it to get things apart I found the vaporizer expanded in there and I cut it out just to see why. It had cracked and swelled. I cut the vaporizer open and was shocked how much black crud was in there. This was about 2 months ago. 1 month ago I decided to spend the $$ on a rebuildable Vaporizer off EBay. It arrived today. Was so excited since I waited so long for it to arrive from Korea. Well installed it, filled fresh K-1 Kero in it and started the preheating. After it was almost out I put 3 pumps in. Got a quick flare up for a second then started. I figured it was cold so added more alcohol and waited. Pumps 5 more times and noticed it wasn't getting bright but had flames out the mantle. Now the alcohol is gone and still flames out the mantle pretty bad. Its like the jet is worn but then I noticed the fit of the brass vaporizer in the Spigot was pretty loose compared to the original steel one. Could it be that it's not getting heated enough because of that loose fitting? Has anyone experience with this generator? I even tried changing the mantle and still no luck. Its running rich. I wonder if opening the air holes on the buttons would help?? I been waiting so long and want to get it working but in my area parts for this are very hard to find. I am saving to buy a new one from Vapalux but money is really tight right now. Please help me figure this out. Thanks Kal
Kal Did the spigot get damaged? How loose is the vapouriser in the spigot? The vapouriser you bought should be fine. Also: check that your burner components are all tight and no wasps have built nests in your burner tubes. Are you from Washington (WA, USA) or Western Australia? Cheers Tony
I am from Spokane Washington. WA State. It fits loose enough I can wrap a thin wire around it and it still can fit in the Spigot. I say 2x the gap of the steel vaporizer. I took it all apart and reassembled it. Everything was cleaned and assembled easy. I changed the vaporizer gasket. Took the gen off and disassembled it to see if anything was in there that needed cleaning. Looks like new. I flushed the fuel out several times. First with BB's. Not really anything came out and was really clean. I put it all back together. The gen assembled easy. It has 4 spings and 2 brash bushings a pricker, cleaning needle and the cleaning rod spring. It still has flame outside the mantle. I took the gen off and removed the springs and tried again. It was pulsing badly. Put the longer lower springs back but not the top springs and got really rich yellow burning. I put the top springs back and left out the lower ones and it got a whiter light with no pulse but has a flickering issue and slight flame outside the mantle. I am very confused about this?? Can the springs have that much effect on how it burns? A friend said take out the 2 small diameter orings and try. Leaving the larger outer springs off. It has a very slight flicker but no pulse and whiter light with barely any flames out the mantle with 30 pumps total. Light is decent almost as it should be. At least it's at the point I can use it now. I will try to leave the bigger springs in after it cools. See what kind of effect it has. Better or worst. Either way I will report here. I still want a good original vaporizer to use on this M320. I will play with this one more before I can say how it works. All I know is I love my Coleman 237's but when this M320 had the original vaporizer it was quickly becoming my favorite nightly burner! Kal
Ok I decided to put all springs back in but switch the tip to the spare tip from the spare jet & needle kit I ordered at the same time. Put it on hand tight and preheat it 2 times and slowly added pumps to reach 30 max pumps. It works! No flame out the mantle. Let it cool and put the other tip back on. Same lighting and pumps but has a Very slight flame out the mantle?? I gues it was the other tip. Glad I ordered the spares. Its bright and has slightly noticeable flicker but I'm sure that will disappear once it's up to operating temperature. I still would like to get an original steel vaporizer just to have in case this one fails.
Hi, Well done on your fault-finding... i would also let the supplier know maybe they will refund or send a new jet? www.base-camp.co.uk should have vapourisers for your lantern, failing that there are several sellers on ebay uk selling nos vap tubes right now, maybe if you ask em nicely they will ship? Good luck with your lamping! Regards, pb
Good idea to have spares. I will be sending messages to each seller. Its running fine for an hour now and the flicker almost went away completely. I will run it through a several full tanks of strait k-1 kerosene to see how things go before I feel ok with taking it camping. So far it's ok. Not as bright as the original Vaporizer but plenty bright for any chore or camping. I wonder if because its brass if there's possibility of the same thing happening m ? Swollen or pregnant Vaporizer in the Spigot??? Anyone use this rebuildable brass Vaporizer and had any issues? Thanks Kal
Sorry to read of your problems. I can't help with your replacement generator, but will note that I had a "pregnant vaporiser" failure some years ago. Search my posts and you'll find it. I'm fairly convinced it was down to the fuel. These days I only run my lights on what we here in the UK call "central heating oil". Also known as "28 sec oil". The pre-pack / 5 ltr containers of paraffin we can buy in hardware stores here are (apparently) not the same stuff. Some form of synthetic paraffin I understand, although I'm unsure as to exactly what the difference is. Genuine NoS generators are easy to come by on this side of the pond. I expect shipping to you won't be cheap, but you could always buy a few and save costs that way.
