Hopefully I placed this in the right section... If not feel free to move it where it should be. I recently picked this 508 up just to see if I could save the generator. These replacement 400/508 style gens sell for more than the value of the stoves in my opinion. But who doesn't need a challenge anyhow? Here is the gen. Two issues... One being the flame control lever was broken, and two the gen tube is cracked near the flare. I located some stainless tig rod that was the perfect size needed for the flame control lever. After some twists and bends and one redo bend I was happy. Now to silver braze the crack. I decided to add a piece of brass tubing inside to act as a backer Incase the braze tried to bleed through. Not going for beauty here, just functional. Fixed gen reinstalled. Now to make some fire... Hopefully in all the right places! High. Low. These 400/508 style stoves make great water burners!! Thanks for following along. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Have a great rest of the week everyone!
Nice work! I have a couple of NOS ones, but I've also got used ones that I keep just in case. By the way, nice Tilley stove, too. Cheers Tony
How hot can that part get? It looks ok with that pot but what if you put a larger pot or fry pan on it? The repair looks great but I worry silver solder is too low a melting point. How hard would making a complete new generator from brass tube have been?
Thank you all for the kind words. It was a fun challenge for sure. @Tony Press thank you. I'm not much of a Tilley guy as you know, but the CS56? Was fun to play with. I should place it in the gallery I suppose altho there's probably some already there... All I did was throw some new seals/pips in there and it fired right up in typical Tilley fashion @geeves like I mentioned above I used a silver brazing rod, not silver solder. Harris Stay-silv No.6 to be exact... It's a Phos-copper silver brazing alloy with a melting temperature of 1425F... If the stove gets that hot I will have other issues first BTW I placed a large pot (8 quart) on it this morning to give it a workout. Hung over the stove grate 2-3 inches all the way around. Boiled water for over an hour and shut it down. I feel confident it's safe. As I already have a nice example of this stove, this one is going to a close friend, and I wanted it to be as safe as possible
The melting point of the silbraze depends on the percentage of silver in it, but the flared part of the generator won’t reach a temperature anywhere near the melting point of even the 55%Ag stuff. When I’ve repaired leaks in kerosene burner parts bathed in burner flame heat I’ve used a higher melting point silbraze (30%Ag) which has always held perfectly well. With regard to making a generator out of tubing, my small bore pipe bender couldn’t form a small enough radius and a silbrazed joint would still be required at the inlet block.
The ingenuity displayed here is one of the reasons I love this forum. I am impressed with your ability to overcome. Thank you for sharing.
Question concerning the 400. I thought that first they did arrive with the 400 and then 502. ???! Today I discovered a 508 is like a 400, what is the difference and how many others model has the same mechanic principle than the 400. Thank you in advance to help me educate myself.
@JP2 from memory the 400, 400A, & 508 all share the same burner and generator setup... Founts and F/A assemblies differ between a couple of those. The 505/576 models are very similar to the above mentioned models, yet take a different generator... Altho I have all of them, I've never compared the generators to see what the difference is. I consider these pound for pound some of Coleman's best singles they ever produced. Sure wish they would've supported them a bit longer.
Coleman generator!!!!! OR. all generators Can we remove the inside for cleaning? Even new !!???? Thanks
