I was pulling my hair out over figuring what parts combo or order of parts on the recent lantern find to get the pump to push some air into the fount. Even went so far as to remove the check valve to see if it functioned correctly. Substituted some Coleman pump shafts which worked a little, but that only caused me to wonder still why the correct shaft with new cups still did not create pressure. Had the lantern running, but poorly. I had success in making pressure by using a Akron lamp plug off a lamp so I could use a external pump to pressurize the fount. After half a day or more, looked closely at the pump shaft and finally spotted a fine crack along it. I finally moved on to looking beyond the pump cup to see if there was another reason. Pretty slow to look elsewhere. The lantern still had poor light output I thought using the external pump, but after I had pressurized the fount for over 5 minutes, it must have had something plugging up the plumbing as it suddenly cleared the obstruction and ran like it should, not sure the pricker mechanism had a good pricker tip, my old eyes couldn't tell. Everything was tight, the seller had it nice and pretty, but not functional. Had to apply a torch to everything, the pricker mechanism was stuck the worst. Unable to unscrew the genny, although with the burner off, got a good fuel spray out of it, did not try to remove the tip. Duane
That's a smart looking lantern and it's nice to hear it's burning brightly. The split in the pump shaft should seal well enough with solder.
I'm sending the shaft off next week to a guy who makes repairs. Thought he would use a new shaft and just move the ends to it. Don't knowl Duane
