Hi all, very excited my first petromax arrived today. I've done nothing but swished out the fount with acetone, it looked like beer coming out for awhile, and replaced the cap rubber, and tightened the valve wheel gland nut to stop a leak. Nrv seems to work. Going from what I've read on here it's early fifties going by the collar and no e in the g. It's got a slight pulse so I'm probably going to have to clean out the generator (Preston loop) as it didn't want to squirt any fuel for awhile. Couple of questions, what's the tube for in the preheat cup and where do I get spares from in Australia? I got a spare part set for an hk500 off eBay but not sure how many bits are compatible. Cheers
H @Brian Reynolds Congrats to your akquisition! For safety reasons I'd recommend that you service the rubber pip in the pump NRV, since they tend to get hard and might fail at some time, usually when you expect it at least. No major problem with kero, but always annoying. The tube in the preheat cup is inteded to lead the preheating flame a bit closer to the mantle so that the fuel fumes will ingnite better. Further, when the spirit in the cup is (nearly) burnt out there's still some remains inside that tube which will suffice to ignite the lantern. Any spares from the 500HK (523 / 829) will fit, except the jet and needle of course. As I see you still have the original glass cylinder. So if you find a cheap replacement I'd recommend to save the original. And cleaning the vaporizer is always a good idea. Usually I drill out carbon residues from the straight part, and use a piece of an old bicycle bowden cable to clean the Preston loop from the inside. After this I use an ultrasonic bath with some citric acid. Have fun with this nice old lantern. Maybe you can also identify some scratched numbers at the tank bottom which indicate the date of manufacturing. Regards, Martin
Thanks @Martin K. That's interesting about the spirit cup, I did notice the flames went quite high when pre heating it. I love this lamp already. I will replace the pip soon, I've ordered a special tool to remove the NRV as I'm scared I'll damage it if I use a screwdriver. @Alenstein I can't find any marks on the bottom but I haven't cleaned it up yet. Cheers
@Brian Reynolds , nice one ! Always fun to simply clean and use a lantern. @Martin K. , how do you get a bowden cable in the preston loop ? Niot a lot of space to get it in from the top.
@WimVe This is indeed a bit fiddly. I cut one open end of the cable straight with sharp pliers so that the individual wires still lie well together. I then bend these over the last 3-4 mm at about 45° so that I can insert them into the Preston loop from the upper end of the vaporizer. Then I clamp the cable in a vice for a short free length (to about 5 cm) and turn the whole vaporizer while slowly pushing the cable in. When I can't push any further, I clamp the cable again and continue turning and pushing. I do this until I can't push any further because the cable hits the bottom exit of the loop in the straight part of the vaporizer.
I usually put a bit glassfiber filament in the preheter tube. This helps for even higher preheat flame, faster preheat, and 1x cup alc sufficient for startup.
Gday Brian mick burton here you messaged me a bout petromax do u want to call me after 6 tonight 0418120129
Hi mate, I'm at work in wa at the moment I don't knock off until about 9 your time but I'll try about 7 your time. Yeah I believe it's genuine. I've got a thing about petromax now after getting one awhile ago. Cheers
