A couple of weekends ago I was fuelling lanterns for a BBQ evening. I took what I thought was my Coleman 249 kerosene lantern and topped it up with paraffin. It was only when I went to light it and saw it had no spirit cup that I realized I had taken my 242 gasoline lantern instead, and I now had about a pint of mixed Aspen 4 and paraffin. Needless to say I did not attempt to fire that lantern and today I decanted it into my Nova+ and made breakfast: This is the first time I have fired the Nova+ in a good long while but it worked 100% so it seems the pre-recall gremlins have left for good. I am very glad about this because it used to drive me up the bloody wall! I'm sure none of you experienced and knowledgeable stovies have never done anything so daft as to put the wrong fuel into one of your prized collection...
Your 242 could run just fine on a 50/50 mix of paraffin and CF (Aspen). I have a 242 that has a nice new generator tip and it does OK on straight kero (paraffin). The key to converting a 242 to run on straight kero is to only change out the nozzle tip for one size smaller, to allow the higher heat/weight ratio of kero to burn effectively. The generator doesn't usually clog up much faster on kero if your air tubes are clean and the mantle is proper, allowing the gen to heat up properly. Oh, I almost forgot, adding a pre heat cup is important obviously. To get it to light properly without a cup, you manually pre-heat the generator with a small propane torch. Stan
DC, This is one of the attributes that I greatly admire about my Nova. It is not a "picky eater". I feed it the dregs from most any old fount filled with who knows what. Stale fuel and "Left overs" its regular fare. Only regret is that I wish it was CENG connected. AR
Hi, David, I can't tell you how many SVEA 123 and 8R stoves I've purchased at swap meets, almost new in the box, for only $2!! All of them were filled with kerosene, and a smoky mess! So, you are not alone in having done this, and even our backpacking Guru from the old days, Colin Fletcher, did the very same thing when backpacking the length of the Grand Canyon, years ago. His fuel was 50/50 mix of auto gas, and oil, meant for a lawn mower, I believe. His stove for that trip was an early MSR X-GK, and his glowing reports on how that old stove continued to function, albeit not at completely full power, amazed and impressed me. Colin had a fuel drop half way through his trip, and got back to using Coleman fuel. But, the stove, other than a little cleaning, was unscathed by such a noxious fuel diet! After reading his comments, I decided to save my pennies and get my first X-GK. It's stellar performance from then to today has kept it one of my most favorite and trusted stoves, with very few peers! Take care, and God Bless! Every Good Wish, Doc
Wrong fuel? There is an outfit here called Sucky-Moto who have vans with pumps that suck fuel tanks of cars that have had the wrong fuel put in them at servos. I spent a pleasant half hour making 'helpful' comments to my flat mate after he put diesel in the lawn mower. You are not the first and surely will not be the last.
Some years back a friend's daughter was brow beaten into filling her dad's Mercedes Benz with unleaded instead of the diesel it required. Dave finally had to unleash the "Lawyer Of Death" on the owner of the gas station (Chevron Oil) to get his engine replaced. I am one of few who has YET to instill the incorrect fuel into any of my stoves. It's coming, I'm sure. Few of us are immune. Like Doc, I accumulated several stoves that in the previous owner's words were crummy overpriced foreign junk. One all knowing teen age idiot made me so mad, I dumped the turpentine he'd put into a lovely 123 I just paid him $3 for into the gutter, filled it with coleman fuel and fired it up just to show him what an ass he was. His Mom stood there with a huge smile while his Dad told him that instruction sheets were put in little stove boxes for a reason. No I did not sell the stove back to him. I still have it. The missus still thinks I was hard. I told her life is hard, it's harder when you're stupid. Maybe the kid learned something, but I doubt it. Maybe I should have sold it back to him for the then current retail price, about $45. Gerry
Hopefully you don't do this anymore Gerry. That stuff typically goes right into the groundwater supply somewhere. Here in Hawaii we have turtles swimming around with tumors from the chemicals in the water that comes from sewer run off.
G,,day I will hold my hand up. i have posted it before, mix of metho, kero, shellite. in a M-1950 burnt very good. kerry
I tell my students that if you don't fully read or follow the paperwork they are called the "destructions" If you read them when things don't work quite right they are called the "corrections" AR
I used to visit a lovely hobby shop in California to buy various toys for my kids. The store had a HUGE sign up behind the counter, that read: "When everything else fails, try reading the instructions!" Yonadav
When the polar ice-caps melt we'll find a big red button and a sign underneath that reads: "Push to restore factory settings. Refer to instruction manual for correct operation" Except we'll have put the instruction manual out with the recycling years ago.
In the Army is was not at all uncommon for a sleepy soldier, working in the dark with only a red lensed flashlight to guide him, to accidentally hook up a 5 gallon can of gasoline to our tent heaters/stoves instead of a can of the aviation fuel (JP4 - highly refined kerosene) they were set to run on. The gasoline burned HOT - I remember more than once waking up in the dark to see the stove glowing cherry red from the base to a few feet up the exhaust stack. The next day it was always a mandatory class on stove safety and instructions on how to tell gasoline from kerosene.
