Got this stove pretty cheaply, all was sooted up really good, touching any part got your fingers black. Cause? Fuel cap that came with it had what looked like the SRV had been messed with, plus an extra gasket that was loose in the cap, and, another washer in the tank, rattling around which got me thinking was a chunk of solder from the factory, but turned out to be the extra washer. Maybe a previous owner had sealing issues and whenever they tried to fire up the stove, fuel leaked badly, causing soot all over. I’ll have to look at my other 8R stoves, I think it takes the key with the cut outs instead of the knob shown that came with the stove, Optimus changed those a few times. Runs better than some of my other 8R stoves, the wick was pretty sorry before drilling it out. Duane
Nice work. Were you able to clean and straighten that rear pot support? It looked like a couple of mine.
