Great information. I’ve had a couple 200A’s that have been in my family since I was a kid. They are mine now and with some attention they both work pretty well. The generator on the older 1968 probably needs some attention, as you have shown here, since it pulses a little. Just a couple weeks ago I found a really nice 1982 200A for $8 bucks at the local thrift store. I grabbed it immediately. It had fuel in it, so I pumped it up and looked for leaks, and found none. Even the mantle was good. Threw a match in it and it lit perfectly and runs perfectly, like it was new. Score! These old lanterns are fun and bring me back to years gone by. Now on the hunt for a 236. I don’t need a 236, but now I want one, because as you say they are so easy to work on.
@gasunderpressure9131 The 249 didn't light up. Seems like roo much raw liquid fuel. Can't seem to figure it out. Perhaps the mantle is too small. Hard to figure out the correct size. I tried a 99 but it was way too big.
The 249 is a Kerosene lantern. It'll require a preheat to get it to light as it has no fuel/air system. Fill it with kerosene, fill the preheat cup with denatured alcohol, light, wait unti it's almost burned out and then open the valve. It's the same lighting procedure as the 237, so look up that video if you want to see how to do it. :) Also, #21 is the correct size for the 249.
I have a 288 I got as a part of a lot and this thing would pulse constantly right from start up. I went over it so many times and nothing I did worked. I was told it was the generator, or the burner frame, or even the burner caps. No matter what I cleaned or replaced it kept doing it. I finally gave up on it after quite a few people told me "some of them just do that". I didn't really accept that answer but frankly I was done with it and was planning on using it for parts if I ever needed any. Then one day, like a bolt of lightening out of the blue, it suddenly hit me that these things use a different fuel tube than the older ones like the 335 or 321. I took the valve assembly out and I took the plastic fuel tube off (again) but this time I looked at it very closely under a strong magnifying glass. The fuel orifice at the bottom had the smallest of flakes of plastic (likely from manufacturing) laying over part of the hole. it was too big to enter and not laying perfectly flat so it would not block it completely but it was stuck on one end. The best I can figure is it was flapping like a reed valve shutting the fuel flow down enough to cause the pulsing. I managed to pick it out with a toothpick and when I fired it back up the pulsing was gone. Works like a charm. But it amazed me that a piece of plastic smaller than the period at the end of this sentence could cause such a troublesome problem.
Nice video! Try wrapping solid copper wire just slighter smaller gauge than the spring coil all the way up the needle. Or pack it with bronze wool. Those usually seem to help.
I've had that recommended by a member from the CCF, so the bronze wool trick will be the next fix. If that stuff burns through, I've got bigger problems! But seriously, I think that will be an excellent long-term fix. I'm just going to keep going until the cardboard tube in this one gives up...then I'll do the bronze wool.
Just found your channel and subscribed. I have about a dozen lanterns I’ve found at garage sales over the years that I use camping. Thanks for providing these great videos. Just curious where your located? Oregon here. Take care Don
Have you ever tried using bronze wool for the generator packing? I've been using it as a replacement for the white tube for some time and it seems to work well. It will also stop pulsing on lanterns that still pulse even with a new generator. You basically wrap the outside of the spring in the area where the white tube would sit with bronze wool while the cleaning rod is inside the spring. (If you don't leave the cleaning rod in you can't easily insert it without damage after wrapping the spring.) Then put the wrapped spring/rod back in the generator tube and use like normal. If you find the lantern still has slight pulsing after it warms up you can add more wool to the bottom of the generator tube in the empty space as the spring is smaller in length then the tube. This will smooth it out. Use "fine" or "finishing grade" bronze wool. Also haven't noticed any gumming issues using white gas only.
This is an excellent suggestion. The tubes just don't hold up very well with the heat of the 236, and i'm also finding out they don't hold up very well even with the 22x series. I'll have to get some bronze wool and give it a shot. Thanks for the suggestion!
I really enjoy your videos, and have found them be helpful to the little projects I have taken on. I figue you have forgot more than I know, so I wanted to post this question........I recently acquired and Coleman 290A Powerhouse. It appears to have been shipped from the factor with a bulged globe. O can't find any reference to this anywhere. DO you have any information on such an animal?
As far as I know, I've not seen that anywhere before. I'm guessing it's probably a bulged globe from a 200a? Maybe the original owner broke the globe and that was the only replacement they could find at the time? Globes certainly aren't as common as they used to be in the stores.
Nope, was purchased new thag way. Found a guy online that said his came that way too. I surmise that it was put together by coleman out of parts available at the time. Everything innit is factory. Spoke to the pursone who bought it new out in Utah. Only used a few times. .....i don't suspect coleman would endorse the theory.
I have a coleman northstar dual fuel i rescued from the scrap yard (in the UK) that is pulsing, had the generator apart and there was no sign of a tube, just the cleaner rod and a spiral spring. Should the northstar have the tube?
Good question. Also, in a scrap yard? What a save! In lieu of a tube, you can also wrap bronze wool around the spring. That should provide enough resistance to keep it from refluxing fuel back down into the fount. You may have to experiment with density of packing to find the right amount. Good luck!
Update: - After removing old masking tape on the bottom of the tank, this lantern is Made in Canada Jan 1970 so it is a 200A. Generator all cleaned and reassembled, test light still showed some minor pulsing so I changed out the air pump for a known good one and likewise the fuel cap. The 2nd lighting was very nice, no major flareups, settled down in 30 seconds then fuel flow on the valve, Ran it like that for over 20 minutes. I will be keeping that 236 spring in my lantern tool box for future rebuilds. Awesome tip! I have been struggling with cleaning the generator on an old 200 that I picked up some weeks ago. Have yet to get it started so I tried the heat and quench method several times, carb cleaner, warm citric acid and vinegar all to no avail. I had also bought a 331B from a fellow and part of the deal was a bunch of different mantles, a new generator for the 331 models and most of a generator kit for a 236 (minus the needle rod). Nothing to lose so I pulled the cardboard and spring out of the 236 generator, threaded it into the 200 tube and minutes later had that stubborn thing apart. A pipe cleaner through the tube brought out some big chunks of soot so back in the citric acid to clean the tube and spring. Threaded the 236 spring through the cardboard tube and got some soggy fibers out of it. About to clean and dry the whole thing then give the lantern another try. The comments about fine brass wool as a substitute prompted a look at my soldering station. A big sponge of fine brass wool to harvest from there if Plan A fails. Anyway, wish I had seen your method earlier, it would have saved hours of work and cussing at old parts. Thanks for the tips.
@@gasunderpressure9131 Using a spring to remove the guts of a generator is a great tip. Wish I had seen it a month earlier to save lots of time and grief with the heat and quench method. Encouraged by this, I have embarked on a program to clean all of my generators and get photographs of before and after for each lantern. My 286A flares a fair amount on startup, settles down quickly though. I pulled it apart and it has a dual spring setup. It has seen little use apparently so I suspect the flaring is caused by slower heat transfer and a larger free volume inside the tube. I may modify this lantern with a small alcohol preheater cup. Speaking of preheater cups, I have long wanted a kerosene lantern. I was following one auction on EBay but with 4 days to go the early bidders have already bid the price with shipping higher than the cost of a new lantern from Amazon...so I got one delivered yesterday. I think I saw a video you did on making an alcohol squeeze bottle. I have bent small copper and brass tubing before and not having any sand on hand, I used table salt which worked fairly well. The bottle provided with my lantern is a bit loose in the bottle neck so now I'm looking for my hot glue gun to fix that issue. Current matches burn like short fast dynamite fuses so the quest is on for a flexible necked BBQ lighter to ignite the alcohol easier. You have some great vids, glad I found your channel. Thanks again.
Use both the coil and the tube.from the 200a gen. I'll probably be using bronze wool the next time as it will last a lot longer. That cardboard doesn't stand up well to the heat of a 236.
I'd think that fiberglass is too friable to get into the tube without it breaking up. If it was made into a tube, you'd need resin to hold it together and that wouldn't work with the heat that the generator experiences. Good suggestion though!
@@gasunderpressure9131 Thanks. I was thinking of the one used either as insulation for ovens or as this kind of “rope” to use as seal around the doors of ovens. Or rockwool plugs (the ones used in horticultural trade), though I don’t know if those contain resin.
![[35] Lantern Repair](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YKXWAVIGKbY/mqdefault.jpg)
Excellent job sir.thank for this presentation 😊
Great information. I’ve had a couple 200A’s that have been in my family since I was a kid. They are mine now and with some attention they both work pretty well. The generator on the older 1968 probably needs some attention, as you have shown here, since it pulses a little. Just a couple weeks ago I found a really nice 1982 200A for $8 bucks at the local thrift store. I grabbed it immediately. It had fuel in it, so I pumped it up and looked for leaks, and found none. Even the mantle was good. Threw a match in it and it lit perfectly and runs perfectly, like it was new. Score! These old lanterns are fun and bring me back to years gone by. Now on the hunt for a 236. I don’t need a 236, but now I want one, because as you say they are so easy to work on.
I just bought a 236 scout and can't wait to fire it up. Great video 👍👍
I love the 236. You get the light output of a Petromax with the ease of lighting you get with a 220. It's a great lantern.
@gasunderpressure9131 The 249 didn't light up. Seems like roo much raw liquid fuel. Can't seem to figure it out. Perhaps the mantle is too small. Hard to figure out the correct size. I tried a 99 but it was way too big.
The 249 is a Kerosene lantern. It'll require a preheat to get it to light as it has no fuel/air system. Fill it with kerosene, fill the preheat cup with denatured alcohol, light, wait unti it's almost burned out and then open the valve. It's the same lighting procedure as the 237, so look up that video if you want to see how to do it. :) Also, #21 is the correct size for the 249.
Thank for the video 😊
I have a 288 I got as a part of a lot and this thing would pulse constantly right from start up. I went over it so many times and nothing I did worked. I was told it was the generator, or the burner frame, or even the burner caps. No matter what I cleaned or replaced it kept doing it. I finally gave up on it after quite a few people told me "some of them just do that". I didn't really accept that answer but frankly I was done with it and was planning on using it for parts if I ever needed any. Then one day, like a bolt of lightening out of the blue, it suddenly hit me that these things use a different fuel tube than the older ones like the 335 or 321. I took the valve assembly out and I took the plastic fuel tube off (again) but this time I looked at it very closely under a strong magnifying glass. The fuel orifice at the bottom had the smallest of flakes of plastic (likely from manufacturing) laying over part of the hole. it was too big to enter and not laying perfectly flat so it would not block it completely but it was stuck on one end. The best I can figure is it was flapping like a reed valve shutting the fuel flow down enough to cause the pulsing. I managed to pick it out with a toothpick and when I fired it back up the pulsing was gone. Works like a charm. But it amazed me that a piece of plastic smaller than the period at the end of this sentence could cause such a troublesome problem.
Great detective work there! Hope it helps someone else who runs across this post.
Nice video! Try wrapping solid copper wire just slighter smaller gauge than the spring coil all the way up the needle. Or pack it with bronze wool. Those usually seem to help.
I've had that recommended by a member from the CCF, so the bronze wool trick will be the next fix. If that stuff burns through, I've got bigger problems! But seriously, I think that will be an excellent long-term fix. I'm just going to keep going until the cardboard tube in this one gives up...then I'll do the bronze wool.
it can still pulse if the hole in the tip has gotten bigger. ive run into that a few times as well
Good point! Definitely something to be aware of with older generators.
Just found your channel and subscribed. I have about a dozen lanterns I’ve found at garage sales over the years that I use camping. Thanks for providing these great videos. Just curious where your located? Oregon here. Take care Don
Hi Don. Glad you're enjoying them. I'm in Texas.
Have you ever tried using bronze wool for the generator packing? I've been using it as a replacement for the white tube for some time and it seems to work well. It will also stop pulsing on lanterns that still pulse even with a new generator. You basically wrap the outside of the spring in the area where the white tube would sit with bronze wool while the cleaning rod is inside the spring. (If you don't leave the cleaning rod in you can't easily insert it without damage after wrapping the spring.) Then put the wrapped spring/rod back in the generator tube and use like normal. If you find the lantern still has slight pulsing after it warms up you can add more wool to the bottom of the generator tube in the empty space as the spring is smaller in length then the tube. This will smooth it out. Use "fine" or "finishing grade" bronze wool. Also haven't noticed any gumming issues using white gas only.
This is an excellent suggestion. The tubes just don't hold up very well with the heat of the 236, and i'm also finding out they don't hold up very well even with the 22x series. I'll have to get some bronze wool and give it a shot. Thanks for the suggestion!
This seems like a great idea. : )
I really enjoy your videos, and have found them be helpful to the little projects I have taken on. I figue you have forgot more than I know, so I wanted to post this question........I recently acquired and Coleman 290A Powerhouse. It appears to have been shipped from the factor with a bulged globe. O can't find any reference to this anywhere. DO you have any information on such an animal?
As far as I know, I've not seen that anywhere before. I'm guessing it's probably a bulged globe from a 200a? Maybe the original owner broke the globe and that was the only replacement they could find at the time? Globes certainly aren't as common as they used to be in the stores.
Nope, was purchased new thag way. Found a guy online that said his came that way too. I surmise that it was put together by coleman out of parts available at the time. Everything innit is factory. Spoke to the pursone who bought it new out in Utah. Only used a few times. .....i don't suspect coleman would endorse the theory.
I have a coleman northstar dual fuel i rescued from the scrap yard (in the UK) that is pulsing, had the generator apart and there was no sign of a tube, just the cleaner rod and a spiral spring. Should the northstar have the tube?
Good question. Also, in a scrap yard? What a save! In lieu of a tube, you can also wrap bronze wool around the spring. That should provide enough resistance to keep it from refluxing fuel back down into the fount. You may have to experiment with density of packing to find the right amount. Good luck!
Update: - After removing old masking tape on the bottom of the tank, this lantern is Made in Canada Jan 1970 so it is a 200A.
Generator all cleaned and reassembled, test light still showed some minor pulsing so I changed out the air pump for a known good one and likewise the fuel cap.
The 2nd lighting was very nice, no major flareups, settled down in 30 seconds then fuel flow on the valve, Ran it like that for over 20 minutes.
I will be keeping that 236 spring in my lantern tool box for future rebuilds.
Awesome tip!
I have been struggling with cleaning the generator on an old 200 that I picked up some weeks ago. Have yet to get it started so I tried the heat and quench method several times, carb cleaner, warm citric acid and vinegar all to no avail.
I had also bought a 331B from a fellow and part of the deal was a bunch of different mantles, a new generator for the 331 models and most of a generator kit for a 236 (minus the needle rod). Nothing to lose so I pulled the cardboard and spring out of the 236 generator, threaded it into the 200 tube and minutes later had that stubborn thing apart. A pipe cleaner through the tube brought out some big chunks of soot so back in the citric acid to clean the tube and spring. Threaded the 236 spring through the cardboard tube and got some soggy fibers out of it. About to clean and dry the whole thing then give the lantern another try.
The comments about fine brass wool as a substitute prompted a look at my soldering station. A big sponge of fine brass wool to harvest from there if Plan A fails.
Anyway, wish I had seen your method earlier, it would have saved hours of work and cussing at old parts. Thanks for the tips.
That's great! Glad it worked out for you. Congrats on the 200a; that's one that has eluded me so far.
@@gasunderpressure9131 Using a spring to remove the guts of a generator is a great tip. Wish I had seen it a month earlier to save lots of time and grief with the heat and quench method.
Encouraged by this, I have embarked on a program to clean all of my generators and get photographs of before and after for each lantern.
My 286A flares a fair amount on startup, settles down quickly though. I pulled it apart and it has a dual spring setup. It has seen little use apparently so I suspect the flaring is caused by slower heat transfer and a larger free volume inside the tube. I may modify this lantern with a small alcohol preheater cup.
Speaking of preheater cups, I have long wanted a kerosene lantern. I was following one auction on EBay but with 4 days to go the early bidders have already bid the price with shipping higher than the cost of a new lantern from Amazon...so I got one delivered yesterday.
I think I saw a video you did on making an alcohol squeeze bottle. I have bent small copper and brass tubing before and not having any sand on hand, I used table salt which worked fairly well. The bottle provided with my lantern is a bit loose in the bottle neck so now I'm looking for my hot glue gun to fix that issue.
Current matches burn like short fast dynamite fuses so the quest is on for a flexible necked BBQ lighter to ignite the alcohol easier.
You have some great vids, glad I found your channel. Thanks again.
Is it just the cardboard tube or does it still has a spring in the genny? Mine slurps and pulses.
Use both the coil and the tube.from the 200a gen. I'll probably be using bronze wool the next time as it will last a lot longer. That cardboard doesn't stand up well to the heat of a 236.
What mantel (manufacture and number) are you using as it looks really good! I have a chance at a 237 and after seeing this, I am going for it!
It's a Peerless 111.
For tube use mesh #60
Could the cardboard tube be replaced by a tube made from other material, like fiberglass?
I'd think that fiberglass is too friable to get into the tube without it breaking up. If it was made into a tube, you'd need resin to hold it together and that wouldn't work with the heat that the generator experiences. Good suggestion though!
@@gasunderpressure9131 Thanks. I was thinking of the one used either as insulation for ovens or as this kind of “rope” to use as seal around the doors of ovens. Or rockwool plugs (the ones used in horticultural trade), though I don’t know if those contain resin.
@@miguelangelvizuetmata555 they used to use asbestos before the cardboard idea came along.
Oops a 236 usa and a 249 scout