Thanks Mike. I saw that previously on another forum and the poster was very pleased with its performance on a 500. By the earlier post, I thought there may be something specifically made for the 502.
yes - that is the one 'fire ring for coleman 500' I had hoped it would fit a 502 but I tried it last night and it is to tall to fit under the generator I will need to lower the burner to make it fit - which may not be worth the effort but I will give it a go
WD says "penetrates" right on the can. I've been using it for all sorts of things for decades. One of the "secrets" to making WD 40 work for you is to follow the directions SHAKE CAN WELL it says in bold print. Spray some in a small container (after SHAKE CAN WELL) let it sit, eventually you will end up with a waxy substance at bottom. Is it the best penetrating oil?? Probably not, but if it is what you have in hand, use it.
Pardon the drift Primus, edit see Primus comment below "no drift please" you got it, i'm good with that, no problem. deleted my comment, and sorry. omc Murph you were tagged ... never mind.
No drift please. Has anyone used fuel injector cleaner with success on stove or lantern generators? I have ordered a generator. The old one is getting a little battered. A pity that the replacement burner accessory ring is of the wrong depth. It looks somewhat like the burner of the Army #2 stove.
I've never tried injector cleaner, but doubt that it would work well to clean a generator. They get so hot that any gum inside would, IMO, be mostly carbonized. Something like Berryman's Chem-Dip (can you even get it over there?) for carburetors might work as it takes carbon off of engine pistons pretty well. I don't know if it's safe for red metals like brass, but would assume so since carburetors have brass parts. https://www.berrymanproducts.com/products/carb-and-parts-cleaner/ Seems more expedient to just burn them out though. Addressing the question in your original post, over the last week I have become the owner of a 1973 and a 1984 model 502. The '73 is in good shape and the '84 quite used and neglected. Some minor pump maintenance got both running well and these are my observations: - Without touching the generators, they both have very good heat output IMO. It seems comparable to the 8500 BTU Peak 1 model 400 and Feather 442 that I usually use. - They are not quiet. Not obnoxious, but definitely not quiet. - Someone somewhere said they run hot. Yes they do. The whole top half's metal gets too hot to touch and the tank gets pretty warm as well. - Flame control is quite good, but I find that the lever acts quickly so it's up to users to learn the fine adjustment. The 500 aftermarket burner with slots looks much like the band from a worm clamp that has been welded into a ring. I imagine that someone with delicate TIG welding ability could make a shorter one to fit the 502...
Primus 96, I use carb cleaner, but only after cleaning the generator to remove any loose debris. A small bore rifle cleaning brush, such as for a .22 works well. However, before this, I'm heating the generator to red hot and tossing into cold water to break up residue baked onto the insides of the generator. For stove and kerosene lantern generators, it seems you can remove the generator internals relatively easy for cleaning. Make certain stove and kero lantern generator springs are removed before heating the generator to red hot. They're likely to be aluminum and will melt with a torch. For lantern generators (I know, you didn't ask about lanterns.), these can take many more heat/quench cycles to break the internals free. If buy chance you have an ultrasonic cleaner, those do an amazing job of cleaning a generator, especially the tip. Plus, you don't need an abrasive solution to clean a generator. A few drops of dish washing liquid in the water is enough. If you replace a generator, save the old ones for the day you learn to rebuild them. I rebuild my own generators, and do this quite a lot for the lanterns that I run gasoline in. Gasoline burns dirty, but it sure is cheap compared to naphtha. I just don't use gasoline in stoves. For those that make their own cleaning/pricker rods, the wire gauge is .008" for the 502 and your local music/guitar store probably has it in stock. In the US, it's gauge 8 for guitar string. I found it by asking at the counter. Everything on display were complete sets of guitar strings. Gas_Leak, >>The 500 aftermarket burner with slots looks much like the band from a worm clamp that has been welded into a ring. My thoughts exactly. And I just might have a hose clamp big enough to experiment with. Since there would be no burner rings in the way, perhaps just a small screw would hold it together, like the slotted ring on an inverted lantern. Thinking....
@Gas_Leak Based on the testing of over 50 of my own personal stoves over the last 10 years I have to disagree with the statement. Using a 6-cup stainless steel percolator with 6-cups of water I get the following times. Coleman 502 - Stock 3-Burner Rings, I gave up after 12 minutes Coleman 502 - 4-Burner Rings, 10 minutes 2 seconds Coleman 500A - 6 minutes 28 seconds 7500/8500 btu Coleman stoves - 4 minutes 20 seconds to 5 minutes 45 seconds Using a 1.75 liter Optimus HE pot with 36 ounces of water Coleman 502 - 4-Burner Rings, 7 minutes 37 seconds 7500/8500 btu Coleman Stoves - 3 minutes 15 seconds to 4 minutes 35 seconds I have not found anything printed, either on my stove boxes or in my product literature to backup the 4500 btu claim yet, but I believe it to be close. I'm sure someone here knows were to find it. Mike
I have a GSI one-quart stainless kettle, a lab timer, a 1.0L volumetric flask, and a Fluke thermocouple readout. Perhaps I should do some testing that's more scientific and less seat-of-the-pants.
Before I got a Trangia #27 set I used to use 500 & 1100ml MSR Alpine pans. Imagine the larger pan balanced on a Primus #71! It did almost the same time as a roarer 111 burning paraffin. 3.5min on the #71 and 3 min on the Optimus 111. The use of the larger pan knocked an average of a minute from the boil time. I figure that is because the flames wouldn't go to waste around the side of the bigger vessel. I need to use those pans as well as the Trangia #27 kettle. I did testing outside in the garage, so it was in still air.
Hi, I have a couple of 502s. One's good for making coffee and the like, with a bit of patience, and a "boil water, add stuff" breakfast, such as oatmeal, can be had quickly enough. That 4500 btu figure sounds strangely familiar: Svea 123 or Optimus 8 families? The "good" 502 is about the same time wise as my 123 (non-R) when both are feeling frisky. The other 502 is affectionately known as "The Cold Fusion Stove" as it produces a beautiful blue flame but will barely get a pot of water hot enough for tea, let alone a rolling boil. Or so it was for a number of years. I've fed it a fuel mix of Coleman fuel and Berryman's B-12 Chemtool, a carb/injector cleaner made with several rather nasty ingredients every so often over the years. It seemed to help a little. Then one day, I filled that stove about half way, sloshed the fuel around and poured it into a glass jar to see what came out. Normally there would be tiny bits of detritus, but this day a rather sizable "glob" of green stuff came out. I rinsed again and got more, then on the third rinse, there was nothing spectacular, so I fired the stove up. It was hard to believe the difference! So my guess is the fuel delivery tube(s) had been partially clogged so the stove could never really get to "wide open throttle" burn condition and now the system was running clear. I've also developed a habit to letting the stove burn at full throttle for about a minute +/- before shutting it down. I'll often tap the manifold with a stick while it's doing that until the little sparks of carbon quit flying so readily. Somewhere I'd read on one of the Coleman forums/websites this full throttle burn helps keep the generator clean. Watching the sparks is probably just cheap entertainment. I can only attest to the fact whatever I've done hasn't hurt, and today it's hard to tell whether I'm running the "good" stove or the "cold fusion" one without checking the tank date! Rick C
thought I better try that widget on the RIGHT stove goes good - got some heat proof paint to apply before this one is finished if I could get that on a 502 I would be chuffed to pieces
I am wondering if I have got crud in the tank. After burning cleanly for around 20 min the flame starts to go yellow. There's no soot on the base of the pan, but there's black stuff beginning to accumulate around the cup of the burner outside the crinkled flame diffuser. You blow the stuff away and get some pretty sparks. I don't have a brush for the mixer tube in case there's anything in there. I want to put steel bearings into the tank & give it a damn good shaking & then see if there is any gunk coming out suspended in the fuel. It IS affecting combustion. In the MSR Alpine I only get a strong rolling boil if the lid is left on and lifted when I see steam. It almost stopped if I lifted the lid right off, wheras the Optimus 111 can keep that rolling boil with the lid off.
I've tried carb cleaner on my 502, no difference. Manual cleaning of the generator via heat, air, and brushing was the only thing effective.
I did a quick and dirty run on my two 502s. Test was indoors, still air at 72°F, and one liter of water in a cheap household kettle. Water temperature started at 73°F and boiled at 207°. Times are HH:MM:SS. The '73 took 00:09:30 The '84 took 00:09:45 You all are right; that's kind of a long time after all. Worth noting is that with both 502s the water temperature rose about 14°F/min. Also tested for kicks was an '83 Peak 1 model 400 that I use a lot and it boiled right at 00:05:00. Temperature rise was 27-28°/min. I think these were officially rated at 8500 BTU. Time-wise, the results indicate that the 502 has a heat output that is about 52-53% of the 400's output. That is the difference between 4500 and 8500 BTU, so I think 4500 is probably an accurate rating for the 502.
As OMC linked, my 502 heated 1.5L of 60°F water to 185°F in 6 min 14 sec. The pot was a 1.5L Optimus HE. That test was outside in 58°F weather. There was no wind and I did not use a windscreen, so the stove was in the open. That would be about 20°F per minute of temperature rise for a larger amount of water. I have one other 502 that seems to behave about the same. I have no explanation for the difference.
I didn't have steel bearings, but I did have some green glass 'marbles'. They are used in my jars of liquids in photography to raise the level and eliminate the air gap when the vessel is rigid. Anyway. After shaking eight of them around the tank is pretty clean actually. It hasn't made a great deal of difference to the stove, still the same 7 min for a Trangia 27 kettle.
