Hello All, I have a couple of Coleman 502 stoves. I was more curious than anything to see if these stoves can run on Kerosene/Paraffin. I uses only a small amount of kerosene in the fount. Used some spirits to heat the gen, and by the way these stoves are not designed to run on kerosene so it takes a bit more work to get them to light. The results are pretty good, but again it takes some patients and time for the stove to heat up and run properly. Here is the Coleman 502 running on kerosene. Again do not try this unless you are willing to take the time to properly light it. Cheers, Norman
Interesting. I may not have the patience to prime so might ise a propane torch for the experiment although IIRC someone did run his 502 on kerosene. Ron
I have one 502 that I've been running on kero exclusively for about a year now. I wound a couple of spirals of 12 guage copper wire around the generator where the flame hits it on either side of the burner to aid in heat absorption and it runs very well in all phases, simmer to full. I did the copper wire without testing prior, so it may not make much difference, I just thought it prudent. I runs a bit hotter on kero obviously so turn it down a bit when using a heat drum or you may distort the grate. A short prime is all I've needed and haven't had any underburn or flaring issues. I haven't pulled the generator since I "converted" it, but have run 5 or 6 full tanks of kero through it with no issues so far. I'll pull the generator and see how bad the carbon deposits are tomorrow and report back. Mike
Hi Norman very immpresive indeed i am surprised how well the 502 which is designed to run on white gas burns so well with kero i have a 502 which was given to me by Sam and i realy love it in fact it is one of my favourite stove and i would say the best single burner stove coleman made. Even though my fuel of choice is paraffin/kero i will stick to coleman fuel for my 502
I pulled the generator yesterday on my kero 502 and was surprised at the cleanliness in there. Everything slid right apart. There was some blackening of the spring and needle but not any more than I would have expected on Coleman fuel. The tube had a small area of light carbon. I think I'll keep this one on Kero permanently. Mike
Thank you for doing this experiment. I tried kerosene in a Coleman 425B suitcase stove. It burned very well but was prone to yellow flares when adjusting the burners. Starting the auxiliary burner: After stabilizing for a few seconds: It also gave off a slight kerosene odor. Does your 502 smell of kerosene while it burns?
No smell until shutdown. Burns very clean. I'm running low sulfur K-1 at present. Nearly out and will start going with red dyed K-1 shortly as I have about 20 gallons of it on hand. I expect poorer results from that, but time will tell. On a suitcase like that, you are asking a lot since the generator is steel. Thick steel at that. The photo starting the aux burner at first guess appears to be condensed kero vapor purging. That long manifold tube doesn't get or stay hot enough to keep kero in vapor form. After that purges, my guess is, it would run just fine as in the second of your photos. Nice flames on both burner. I remember seeing a suitcase stove modified to run kero. It was commercially modified for marine use. The blue Sears model half way down Terry Marsh's page. Gasoline is generally accepted as unacceptable on boats due to its high volatility and heavier than air vapors which are a serious NO-GO on boats since they are by nature dishes that would collect such vapors. Notice the fiberglass priming pad and heat collector to superheat the generator. The coil method may also work, but I would braze the coil to the generator tube to get better conduction. A smaller jet would help as well. I have some spare generators and will give it a go as well. I highly recommend NOT running these at full power on kero without a smaller jet. That's a lot of additional BTUs that these stoves weren't designed to handle. You may burn some paint and warp your grills. Above all, be careful. Keep us posted. Mike
Check again--that stove was modded to burn alcohol, not kero, but you'd need the same priming pad either way. Murph
Good catch, Murph. My formerly razor sharp mind is dulling a bit with age, I suppose. That pad is probably asbestos in the photo as well. However, I do think the shield would aid in using kerosene as well. Only difference I would see would be a larger than normal jet and restricting the air intake for alcohol, and a smaller than normal jet for kero, though not as critical for kero IMHO. I'll do some testing and report back. Any opinions on this? Mike
I can't really tell from the picture, but the priming pad looks more like fiberglass than asbestos to me. Coleman did briefly make marine stoves in both alcohol and kerosene versions. They were very different from the suitcase stoves and sold poorly. A kerosene version just went for nearly $700 on eBay. I agree on the need for a smaller gas tip orifice for kerosene. Here is my 425B main burner at full blast burning Coleman fuel: And here is is on kerosene: The kerosene flame is obviously overpowered, with incomplete combustion, and an orange streak (not visible to the naked eye) rising from the opening of the mixing chamber.
Hi all, Today I tried a jet from a 214 kero gen and it worked much better. Lighting was much easier, but the drawback is the flame is a little bit touchy on the adjustment now but I can live with it. Cheers, Norman
VERY interesting, thanks for posting about this. I use Coleman fuel for my stoves, but have a number of kerosene lamps - it is good to know that in a dire emergency, kerosene might be an option.
Ok, I coiled a few feet of copper wire and silbrazed it in place on the the generator of a 425. After a good prime, it burns fine on kero but it doesn't get enough air for full power. Hence your yellow streaks. Works great on low or med. I'm going to mod the mixing chamber for a bit for more air and see what happens. Something to consider: I don't know of any kero burner that runs like a Coleman. IE the gas leaves the hot generator to a cool manifold to a hot burner. Mike
I noticed that it would run at full power fine if both burners were running but not with one. I guessed that there simply wasn't anywhere for all the gas to go on a single burner so, I added a couple more burner rings to the main and Voila. Runs beautifully. However, I don't think I'll be running this config on a suitcase stove. The priming was a bear without a propane torch and I flooded the burners 3 times in the process, and the output of the aux after adding the rings to the main is worse. Bottom line: IMHO these run amazingly on Coleman fuel as they were designed. But for me, the extra trouble of extra priming and tricky lighting make this a no-go in my book. That is to say with MY configuration. A generator fabricated from another material, bigger burner and manifold tubes, or jet change may make it more feasible. If it works reliably for you, please update with what you did. My 502 still runs like a champ on kero and I'm keeping it that way. But it's a different animal than a suitcase model. Mike
Here's my kero 502. I didn't braze the wire to the generator since I'd have to make the hole in the reflector pan larger. The just snugly fit over the flame areas. Heres the 425 generator mod. This one's brazed(poorly I might add didn't have the right stuff but made it work) at the ends and in the center. Mike
Mike so long as it doesn't move it's a good enough braze. Ok you might get a better burn/less trouble preheating if you wound the wire tighter to it's self. The idea being to get more heat into the generator. I have not tried this and since i don't have a trashed stove to steal the fount/generator from to test i'll let you keep up the exceleant reporting of this. See pm. lance
Fill the burner cap with alcohol and light it. When it's almost gone, slowly open the main valve. Should be a nice blue flame. If it flares, prime it again. I recommend wrapping the copper wire around the generator if using kerosene. Mike
It must be alcohol (not kerosene) that you prime it with? Just trying to understand if it could be used as a kerosene stove in a situation where there was minimal access to other extraneous tools/fluids/etc. Thanks
