Need help with lighting up a Primus 1020 from 1936

Recently i bought my first lantern, a Primus 1020 from 1936 (code AA). I cleaned it thoroughly and today i tried burning it, but wasn't successfull. Used the following sprit: t-yellow for the reservoir and t-red for heating up. What did i do wrong, is there anybody who can inform me? Thanks in advance.

 

I've no idea what t-yellow and t-red are...

You need to prime (i.e. preheat) with some form of alcohol. I'm not 100% sure what the fuel is for these lanterns - I used paraffin (kerosene) when I tried to light mine. If that's not the correct fuel, that would explain why it wouldn't run.

There are alcohol jets and restrictors for some Primus lanterns. These were used during WW2 to get round the fuel shortages. I've no idea whether that applies to your particular lantern but someone who knows will be along shortly.

Nice lantern, BTW... 8)

 

That's a great looking lantern .Good shape for one that age.Lighthouse is a good name, are you a lighthouse keeper.Been 22 years since I shone the beacon.

Ernie

 

Welcome to the forum and I have to agree that it is a very nice lantern. Being a Primus fan(atic) that's no surprise.

The correct fuel for a 1020 is kerosene. (note to administration: being able to see the country could help here) As David has already mentioned, you preheat with alcohol. You say this is your firat lantern so I'll ask if you have any experience with pressure lamps (or stoves, blow torches, etc.)?

Primus did make alcohol fueled lamps, but they came later. There is a small possibility that it could have been converted and the easiest way to check is to look for the part number on the jet and see if there is a restriction in the end of the air tube.

Good luck with it. Better to ask too many questions than not enough.

 

Without wishing this thread to go off-topic, you're correct Nils - we need to get this sorted as soon as possible.

However, Lighthouse has compounded the forum problem by giving his location only as 'Tingsryd'. Now where's that? - somewhere in Scandinavia perhaps?

 

Lighthouse hasn't compounded any problems!


Everyone has to complete the 'Country' field on registration. But there is a bug I thought I'd made you guys aware off where the country info disappears from Profile after registration. There is another one that doesn't allow location to show within a post, except for a few individuals.

We do need to get it sorted - please accept my apologies for not getting around to it yet.

 

Correct.
Tingsryd is in the dark forrested parts of Sweden in a province with the funny name of "The small lands".

"T-Yellow" should be useable in a 1020, even if I would prefer real paraffin (lysfotogen) made for lanterns.
"T-yellow" is mainly used to soak your barbecue charcoal here, but some use it in stoves and lamps aswell.
"T-red" is the same as meths, and thus the proper thing to use for the preheating procedure.

Lighthouse! Just as Nils said; Better to ask too many questions than not enough, so keep them coming.
It might help if you explained exactly your procedure when trying to light it, and also what went wrong.
Did it flicker or did it came out in large yellow flames and soot etc.
Perhaps nothing happened at all, meaning some major air leak somewhere prevents the pressure to build up.

So tell us more.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

 

The Personal Profile pro-forma (say that when you've had a few!) says, "Location (town, county, state etc):" My interpretation of that is 'give enough information so that people know where you are' - otherwise what's the point? Nothing personal here, BTW - it's a common problem on other forums as well. 8)

Anyway, back to the lanterns! I've never had my Primus lanterns to run properly, either. All I seem to get are yellow flames outside the mantle then 'black mantle disease'. Possibly that indicates worn jets - but on every one?

Is there meant to be any packing in the generator as on Coleman lanterns?

 

No David. No packing. Just a straight, empty tube except for the cleaning needle rod.
There are different type of vaporizers used by Primus, of course, but this kind on the 1020 and it's siblings uses this simple contraption.
I thought your black mantle problems was on the "Preston-ringed" versions!?

 

Mainly, Christer, but not exclusively!

The general rule seems to be that if the lantern has come from an 'English-speaking' nation i.e. UK, USA, Canada, Australia etc., I'll be able to get it to run. If it's from anywhere else - no chance!

For instance, I can get an English Buflam lantern to run, despite it being a Petromax clone complete with Preston ring. But anything from Sweden, Germany, France etc. - not a hope in hell....

 

Wow! Then I see your trouble. It's a linguistically oriented problem.
You just have to learn to speak Swedish, and then perhaps German.
Never mind the French...

...By the way... How's your skill with lanterns from Anchor?

To be serious, I also sometimes find many of the Swedish or German brands to be slightly 'pickier' than British ones. And American lamps are seldom a problem.
On the 1020 of this topic I have found it to be most essential that the jet is as good as new to work properly, but that might just be me...

 

That's not an easy one to explain. Maybe your just a very unique person. Nine times out of ten a Primus works well for me. Just send your Swedish lamps over here and I'll see if it's because of the location.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I have no experience with these lamps at all. Yes, we live in Tingsryd, Sweden. I am Dutch and live now for 5 months in Sweden, I like lighthouses but I am not a lighthousekeeper.

For burning the lantern I used the following procedure:
First I pumped half, then I opened the fuel regulator. I light on the T-red fuel in the preheating area and waited untill it was almost burned up, then I started pumping (about 20 times) but nothing happened. The flames were yellow and blue, did not flicker.

I doubt if the fuel regulator opened correctly so I will check this out asap.

Are there any `explosion view` drawings available?
Where can I buy `lysfotogen`


Thanks a lot !!!

 

"Lysfotogen" is available in most petrol stations. Last time I bought it was on Statoil, and it was called "Camping Paraffin". You just don't want the kind that's called "lampolja", even if it works. Those are mainly meant for wick lamps.

There is no fuel regulator on a 1020!
The wheel/knob is only to control the cleaning needle that you use to keep the jet free.
It can be used as a kind of fuel regulator, but it's not it's purpose and not to be recommended.

One procedure (it varies from person to person) is to fill the preheating cup with alcohol and light it.
I assume that you already have a good and correct mantle attached, and the tank filled with enough fuel!
The tank shall be un-pressurised this far, so let the bleeder screw remain open but the tank lid itself shut tight.
Just before the spirit is about to burn out, you close the bleeder screw and give the lanterns a series of pump strokes. Say five-six strokes, or so (You are just trying out your own way to do this now, and there isn't any exact way).
The mantle should start to glow more or less.
The spirit should also be all burnt out by now, and you can start to pump more in order to give a brighter light. Some 40-50 strokes perhaps, but it all depends on the amount of fuel you have in the tank of course.
With full pressure, it can be a good idea to operate the cleaning needle a couple of times to clear out the jet. Rotate the control knob swiftly back and forth between its stops, and make sure you have the needle fully out from the jet afterwards (the control knob all the way back, counter clockwise).

Try it again, and let us know how it went.
The most essential is that it has been well preheated before you start to pressurise it.

This isn't exacty an exploded diagram, but you can see a spare parts list at Fogas if you follow this link .
They also have jets for your 1020.

 

Have you checked that the cleaning needle comes through the jet? It sounds like something is blocked or partially blocked.

 

Thanks a lot for the information. We´ve done everything you have mentioned but sadly it didn´t work.´
Question: ¨should we feel pressure when we are pumping? we feel no pressure so maybe that´s wrong. Another thing is that we didn´t find a ´´packning´´ in the ´´pumplock´´. should there be one?

@ Nils Stephenson: how can we check that/if the needle comes through the jet. Can you describe where we can find it?

 

Hi,
a friend of me has a english and a german instruction to repair a Petromax lantern. many things are the same:
instruction , maybe it helps a little bit to understand how a pressure lantern works.

 

You should absolutely feel a little pressure when pumping, or perhaps resistance is a better word, so it seems that you might have a problem here. But you must have been able to build some pressure up since you got the yellow flames.
No, there shall not be any seal (packning) inside the pumplid (pumplock) since the fuel can't get up in the pump tube when everything is normal.
But you shall have a pump leather at the bottom of the pump rod, looking like this:


If you fails to buid up pressure, this pump leather might be bad. Soak it in oil (I use engine oil) for a couple of hours, and then gently expand it so it seals good against the sides of the pump tube.
Another common fault when you don't feel any resistance in your pumping might be that the non return valve (backventil) at the bottom is bad.
This valve is possible to unscrew with a special tool, and either replace with a new, or restore the old one.

Lift the gas- and air mixing tube up, as in this picture:


Then you get a clear view of the jet on top of the vaporizer tube.
By turning the control knob fully to the right (clockwise), you will raise the needle to protrude through the jet as seen in the right image on the picture below.
Then turn it fully to the left (counter clockwise) and the needle shall fully disappear as in the left image below.
Mind you, the needle is very small, and sometimes hard to see. You might be better off by just feeling it with your finger tip when manouvering the control knob back and forth.:


I think you might have to do some fettling here, but check these basic things first. And also see if everything, especially the jet, is tightly screwed in place.


If you find that you actually can build the pressure up, you can check it for airleaks by draining the fuel, removing the top, glass and air mixing tube and then shut the lid and air screw tight, raise the cleaning needle by turning the control knob to its fully right position (this helps to keep the pressure in the tank), pump it up good, remove the pump and put the entire lantern under water to see where any possible air leak might be. It might come a tiny stream of bubbles from the jet, but that's normal since we don't have a real positive shut off valve on this lantern.
Other than that, there shall not come any bubbles from any places of the lantern (after the pump tube is completely filled with water).

 

Hello Ernie, in your time as a lighthouse keeper, did you use pressure lamps such as the ones which are shown in this link?

https://classicpressurelamps.com/index.php?threads/1225

If you scroll down through that page there are some other interesting links, cheers from Jeff in the Shetland Islands UK..

 

Great description Christer. Nice clear pictures that tell most of the story.

@Christer: What is the paste you have used on the jet for sealing? I have another lantern I just can't get to seal and something like this might help.

 

Hello, another option would be to meet up with one or more of the Swedish collectors. There are several.

 

Thanks Nils!

Well, that grey gunk is regular exhaust pipe assembly paste.
I can't remember for sure which brand, but it was not Holts GunGum which I find to hard.
This paste came in a tube and was soft and nice to work with. I think it was Hammerite.

I don't know if it really was necessary to seal the threads at the jet, but I had some trouble with this 1020 so I made some remedial measures where this was one.

 

There are two effective things to seal jet threads. First is copper slip which is used as an anti squeal compound on car brake pads and is generally available in most auto stores. Because it is a copper based compound the copper effects a nice seal. The other stuff is old fashioned soap. Sounds crazy but trust me it works. I don't like to use exhaust jointing compound because that expands as it hardens and it sets hard so can make dismantling afterwards difficult. I have used a small dab of it though to hold ceramic mantle caps on. I have had a few of those drop off when travelling and a tiny dab of Exhaust paste stops this. ::Neil::

 

Yes copper paste works too.
But I never had any difficulties in dismantling jets that had been sealed with exhaust joint compound, so I guess it will depend on which product you use or how you do it.
Actually, you should not be in need of any sealant at all there, but it's not everytimes that things play by the book...

There's nothing crazy at all with the soap you mention. It's a good old remedy for things like this, and mainly what was recommended for jets on carbide lamps.

 

Jeff the lighthouse I was at had electricity and used a 500 watt bulb that would last about a year,running 24/7.Up to 1960 it had used a double wick type kerosene lamp.

Ernie

 

Hello Ernie, thanks for the response.

Do you still have contacts with lighthouse folk?

If so, who knows what may be tucked away in the stores, Jeff.

 

No such luck Jeff.They burned the old buildings up to the late 60's and after that they sold the surplus stock or tossed it in the garbage.

Ernie

 

That's a shame!

 

We tried what you have discribed and works!! It looks ok now.

We did exactly what you mentioned but we couldn't find the cleaning needle, so we decided to unscrew the ''munstyck''. We expected to find the cleaning needle but it wasn't there. We think this is causing the trouble.

What's your opinion?

 

By your first description of yellow flames, I wouldn't say that the missing needle is your main problem, even if it's almost necessary to have one if you get your lantern in working condition and want to use it.
The jet gets clogged sooner or later, and then the cleaning needle is essential.

I do assume that you by yellow flames meant that they came out through the mantle?
What size of mantle did you use?
Yellow flames are often - not always - a result of a too rich fuel ratio, and that's not unusual on old lanterns with a worn jet.
It's quite possible that you just has to change the jet, which are available at Fogas.
Have you checked that the air tube is clean and without restrictions? No cob webs etcetera. And absolutely not a brass restriction inside it! That would mean that your tube is for an alcohol fueled lantern (long shot, but you never know what parts has been changed throughout the years, so better check).