Hi Team. Bored in the garage tonite, my beady lil eyes happened on the 421-D Coleman suitcase I picked up awhile back. What the hell. Fire extinguisher ready to hand and garage door wide open. Shook all the rust out of the tank, poured in some unleaded gas (Yeah yeah I know, dont start, it was what I had) and after a dab of oil on the plunger shaft and some pumping, opened the valve, held a lighter to the right hand burner and it popped into life neat as you please. Didnt put up a struggle or anything. A minute to heat, turned the lil cold start lever to 'run' and the element was chucking heat out like a good'un to the tune of a muted hiss. Some fiddling with the lever made no difference to the flame size or colour at all, just what does it do, anyway? Then I lit the left burner, that also started without fuss, but instantly the right burner slowed down noticably and the left one refused to run anything like as fast as the right one dispite brisk pumping. I chalked that up to being in series rather than in parallel for pressure, unlike Primuses etc. Still made a useable amount of heat tho, and both are fully adjustable to very low settings. At about 1/3 power the flame was mostly yellow, a higher or lower setting gave a clean blue flame, I was thinking additives in the gas or something. Let it run for awhile, then turned off and drained the grayish muddy looking slush from the tank. All in all quite successful and useable, might have to be my next tart up project. It reminds me of of my Lada, quite crude looking but gets the job done.
Mornin, Mike! The lever, when up, allows fuel and air into the generator, so it will vaporize quicker. Lever down is fuel only, so the genny must be hot already. This is Colemans version of 'Preheat'. After lighting, you must pump it up a bit, as you've used up a lot of the air during preheat. Also, when you use the 2nd burner, pressure will drop. Pump it up.... I always use the main burner for frying, boiling, etc. I use the 2nd for simmering, as it won't get too hot ! The one advantage over the opti 22, well two actually, is that both burners will simmer, and you don't have to Pre-heat the second burner ! Oh, a third reason, which you've already discovered, is that its Quiet !!! Great car camping stove ! Have fun !
I find that the 2nd burner will get very hot; just not as hot as the 1st. So with the oven or the big boil jobs, I use the first burner. And, in the nature of things, the 2nd burner does indeed get the nod for simmering jobs. But I've done a lot of major heating on both when the clan is there....
Thanx guys, that settles it, it gets a rudimentry clean up ie remove burners, wirebrush case and respray, ditto the gas tank. My favorite part, and this is a mod I'm going to look hard at for the Campingo, are the 'outriggers' that allow the windshield sides to be spread further apart to accommodate bigger fry pans/pots etc.
With a bit of simple maintenance, these things will run forever . . . and then some! Congrats on getting a great Coleman stove. Hey, give it the full workover and you'll have a double burner you can pass on to your kids, and they can pass it on to theirs, and so on, and so forth. 8) 8)
What Sketch said. Keep an eye open for a spare generator if you're going to use the stove a great deal. It's the only thing save the pump leather generally subject to failure from use and age on a Coleman Suitcase stove. Field strip the stove and clear out the galleries. Spiders, wasps and other critters like to homestead in there. A good run-through with a proper bronze bore brush will do wonders. The #2 burner isn't as gutsy as #1, that's normal. Lever up: "Preheat" Lever down: "Burn." If you leave the lever up the stove will go out quite soon. I have a Model #2 that works as well as the day it was made in.....get this......1926. I paid two dollars for it at a garage sale at least fifteen years ago. I brought it home, put in some Coleman fuel and fired it up. It's one with an oven built into the lid. 17lb 9.4oz !. Not exactly a backpacker's stove. I have a friend who has a fully restored '26 Model T touring car and he wants this stove desperately for his car camping kit. I lend it to him several times a year for antique car outings, then torture him by insisting on its return. I'll give it to him this Spring, he's probably suffered enough. Gerry
Some of my older white gas fueled Coleman equipment, be it lamps or stoves, has a gas tank cap with a small vent hole drilled in the side of the cap. Newer Coleman caps do not have the small hole. Why was this change made and when ? On a similar note, years ago, Coleman fuel came in a gallon can with a metal seal over the can spout. The first time you opened the can, you had to take a nail or screwdriver and drive out this seal to access the fuel. So, why was this change made and when ? Ken H.
Ken - The cap with the hole in it is two piece. When it is unscrewed the cap first rises and then the seal breaks loose from the fill hole. If the seal breaks loose when the hole in the cap is pointed at the burner fuel can spray towards the burner. If the burner is lit then you have a problem. The new one piece caps with no hole have slots cut into the threads that direct the fuel spray down away from the burner when the cap is removed. With either cap it is not a good idea to unscrew the cap when the burner is lit or still very hot. Best Regards, HTG
Also notice on the newest liquid fueld coleman stoves that the fuel filler is on the stove side of the fuel tank making it somewhere between extreemly difficult and impossible to remove the filler cap without removing the fuel tank from the stove. AD
That redesigned tank-filler condition has been there quite a few years now. It is presumably, and pretty clearly, a feature designed to prevent fuel filling while there may be flame in the burners.
