Hello all! I have been using my Tilley X246 for some time but lately it started up pretty wierd after preheating. It did not want to give a steady flow of gas, and the gas which was coming out of the vaporizer ignited with a "poof-poof-poof- two times a second or so and so on". Then I changed the vaporizer and the same thing happened, that is the poof-poof-poof. After a bit of pumping it then got the gas flowing better and the mantle was lit perhaps 70% or so. There is now a bit of pulsing which is really annoying, and I would not say the lamp is not giving 100% light. Only parts of the mantle are glowing white as it should. It looks like the pump makes pressure as it should and I dont think there is any leaks anywhere, because the tank releases a lot of pressure when I screw out the pump. "I might be wrong on this and can try to change the parts in the pump with new ones". It might be that the cleaning needle, the vaporizer or the valve is not working right?
I changed the pump leather cup, after preheating i pumped five times and opened the valve, it looked like it should for 30 seconds with a low glow on the mantle. But when I then after 30 seconds pumped more pressure, it started "poof-poof-poof" for about 30 seconds again, and then got an underburn-like sound with a blue flame burning outside parts of the mantle. Could this be because the mantle is a bit missplaced? Perhaps I should replace the mantle?
Then again, dont think it is the mantle. The mantle has worked before and I dont think it is any different from that time when it worked like normal.
I think you need to do a LOT more pumping. It depends how much fuel is in the font. Does the pressure indicator work. That is the small 6mm diameter 6mm high cylinder opposite the pump. At the centre of the cylinder is the pressure indicator that moves up to top of the cylinder to indicate the correct pressure. The indicator may or may not be working. On low fuel levels it can take up to 100 pumps
Hello Kristian, which model of X-246 are you using? If it's an X-246-B, then there are often problems with that aluminium control cock. It does sound like a fuel flow problem, so you could try removing the control cock and giving it a good clean and also clear the fuel feed tube which comes from the tank to the control cock socket. That can be easily done with a length of tying wire, just shove the wire down the fuel feed tube a few times and then give the tank a clean out and fire up the lantern again with fresh fuel. Is the pricker wire in the vapouriser clean? Muck builds up on it and that affects the fuel flow. Are all parts of the burner tight? If any parts are slack then that can also cause pulsing, do let us know how you get on. You also need to add far more pressure. The link below shows Tilley lighting instructions, Jeff. http://0flo.com/index.php?threads/813
Thanks for the help Jones and Jeff! This is a pre-1960 lamp, the Guardsman I think. The instructions you gave Jeff, are quite difrent from the ones from Base camp. I think yours is the best method to use. I changed the NRV in the pump and fired it up. After preheating it seemed to have some of the same symptomes as before "poof-poof-poof" but now I pumped a bit more and it finaly acted as it should. Looks like the problem was gas leaking out of the pump tube, yet no kerosene leaking in to tube. The next thing I will do is to dismantle the controllcockthingy and the tube down to the tank, to see if there might be a need of cleaning as jou mentioned Jeff. Does anybody have pictures of the controllcock dismantled? I know of the exploded view as a drawing, but it hard to see how the parts really looks like. I will keep this thread updated on what happens.
Ok, now the lamp works as it should with enough pressure, no sign of pusling and a bright white light, almost more light than I wanted . Getting a new vapouriser did really work well, must say it increased the CP a lot, perhaps from 60-70 to 100%. I would guess there is some debris and stuff in the tubes, but I would not start to work on something that works, so gonna delay that operation to another time.
Hello Kristian, that's good news! The link below shows Tilley control cocks and there are links in that post which show more information on that topic, Jeff. http://0flo.com/index.php?threads/3607
