Hi everyone I'm finally getting around to restoring a few lamps I bought years ago. First up is the beautiful Petromax. Everything clean and rebuilt with new seals etc and I've found that the vaporiser I think may be too high. Lifting up the mixing tube to the highest adjustment I can barely get to a 12mm gap let alone 14.2mm. It was higher before so I thought I hadn't screwed in the vaporiser enough to the fount, so I with great difficulty tightened it another 360 degrees which squished the new lead seal out of the sides but the gap only went from around 11mm to 12mm. I have read on here people in a similar position were advised that perhaps their vaporiser may be a different longer vaporiser. I don't know any of the history of my lamp. Mine is an early 70s Petromax. I initially thought early 60s but I read one of the German guys on here saying I think that the blue plastic on the cut off switch of the rapid heater shows that it's early 70s..I could be wrong, it was a year or two ago. The mixing J tube will not go any higher so I'm at a loss as to what I can do and honestly I'm really hoping that with the nights getting longer I will be able to light the lamp soon. Can anyone tell me what is going wrong please. Much appreciated.
@Charlie321 Welcome to the forum If you push the retaining plate inside the inner cleading #117 upwards,you might gain another 2mm. If that doesen't work,you'll need a different inner cleading #117 that matches the age of the lamp.
@Charlie321 Maybe You can just install smaller jet and needle set - 250 or 350CP for example. all the best, Piotrek
A few more close-up pictures on the hood/j-tube assembly might be helpful for all to see what exactly is preventing you from adjusting the air gap wider. We should be able to tell whether it could be corrected or not.
Can you force the generator (lower part) one more full turn of the thread into the tank. This may help. Depends on the thickness of the lead washer you use and on the exact position of the threaded insert in the tank which holds the generator. (Beware: after "tight" comes "broken off") Erik
My idea too. Did you check how many lead washers are under the vaporiser? Sometimes people put in more then one to get the position right. Also check the air mixture screw in the J-tube. If it still has the paddle it is maybe in the wrong position.
Yeah I pushed it up but it still wasn't enough sadly Noooo we get these gorgeous lamps for the 500cp POWER don't we? Haha. I've taken a couple more. Not sure what else I can show? Thanks Erik.. Well this last turn that I did was VERY stiff and squashed the lead washer a lot.. I am concerned that any more and it'll break if not already. After dismantling I removed the old lead washer. I replaced it with a new one from the Base camp site.. It didn't seem unusually thick. There is an air mixture screw/paddle, it's loose and lost it's weld or fixture in the J tube (another issue to deal with) so it's wonky. But I don't understand how being in the wrong position could effect the gap. You can see in one of the pics that the lead washer is squeezing out of the bottom where it screws into the fount. The other pic is the highest position that it'll go.
The last picture with the lead washer squeezing out shows another one that remained in place. The fitting soldered into the tank is only the chromed hex nut, there can be seen another grey ring which belongs to another lead washer that remained in the fitting. Obviously it is much harder that the one you used.
This picture shows that the vaporizer seems to be protruding a little too high above the inner hood's flange: Check the vaporizer again too see if it is the correct Petromax one. Ensure it isn't a vaporizer from another brand which, can sometimes be slightly taller than the original. As mentioned by others, check again if there's actually another older lead seal that could be causing the vaporizer to be seating too high.
