Looking for friends?

Are you sitting home lonely because nobody ever emails you?

Heres what you do, buy something from Harry and David. Heck maybe you should just do that anyway, Moose Munch is tasty but when you do be prepared for the DELUGE of emails Harry and David is gonna send you. 2-3 a day is not unusual, you'll be reminded that Christmas is "just around the corner" and they'll tell you about all the good crap they've got that you might want to buy...

On second thought you could order from Figi's, its cheaper, the shipping is faster and they don't send you a stack of emails...

190D Adventure!

Red 1984 190D 173,000 miles, dead engine and its mine. $250 because the timing chain broke and the engine might be garbage. It might be rebuildable but it might be garbage.
Originally this was to be a parts car for my other 190D. This car is pretty much rust free and mine isn't so I figured a couple body parts, the diff, the electromagnetic fan clutch and some interior bits. Maybe sell a couple bits to recoup my costs and off to the scrapper.

On second look though this is way too nice a car to do that to... It turns out replacement engines are pretty easy to obtain at reasonable cost so I need to talk to my mechanic and see if he's hip to swapping engines or knows somebody who is. This could become a nice driver.

8!

Yes another one... This is a Coleman 242 (ahh, theres a letter but I can't remember right now, "C"?) 1949 I think, I forget...
Yeah its not supposed to be blue, the fount is nickle underneath. I have no idea why somebody would paint a nickle fount blue... Originally I was looking for a fount to replace the bent one on my 249. It turns out that won't work since the 242 uses a narrower hole in the top. The guy who had offered to sell me a fount also had some 242 lanterns and for $15 I couldn't pass one up. The $15 apparently goes to support the International Coleman Collectors Club which is a good cause too.

I *think* the blue paint will come off and I hope to be able to shine this one up. We'll see how it goes.

Coleman 249 Scout

I don't remember if I've written about the Scout before. I bought it on eBay back last summer some time. I'd had a bunch of trouble with it because the generator was bent and would leak at its base. I finally sucked up the $20 price tag and bought a replacement. With the replacement and a #24a Peerless (Coleman #99 equivalent) mantle it lights up like a CHAMP!
This is a kerosene 350cp lantern. Kerosene lanterns are fun because you have to preheat the generator to get them to light. If you don't preheat you get liquid Kerosene and big flames (been there, done that!) So you fill the preheat cup with denatured alcohol and let that burn which preheats the generator. As the flames are just about to go out you crank open the valve, kerosene vapor heads into the mantle and you get light.



My lantern takes about 5 minutes to get lit but the results are great, 350 cp is about like a 60 watt bulb so its plenty to comfortably read by. The best thing is that this lantern makes very little smell. I had it burning in the living room yesterday for a couple hours and while I could definitely smell it the smell wasn't objectionable. In the winter its nice to burn inside because of the heat, think small electric space heater and you get an idea how much heat this throws.

Now I just need a contact with a fuel distributor so I can get road taxed, undyed kerosene. I want it without dye because the dye will gum up the generator. To get kerosene without dye you need to pay road tax. I'm okay with that, the gallon of kero I have came from the hardware store and was (I think) $12. If I could get kero with the road tax for $5 (which would be a considerable premium considering diesel fuel is under $3/gal) I'd be pleased...

My Wenzel lantern is also kerosene, it'll be interesting to see how it does. I'm waiting on parts, apparently they've shipped so I expect to be able to play with it this weekend.

Organization

Spent a little time today going through all my posts and adding tags for them, this will help in searching out specific posts or threads of posts. Thus if you see a tag at the bottom of a lantern post that says "lantern" you can click on it and get all the lantern posts I've made. Coleman stuff? Click on Coleman. Some I've even made more granular like "Coleman 202".

Enjoy!

This also got me reading some of my older posts. Expect a few "then and now" type posts in the near future.

Another Doctor visit

Got to go to the doctor again today, oh joy, oh rapture!
Satire aside I explained how the naproxin he'd put me on made me feel worse. He figures this means my problem is actually stomach related which is handy because I'd decided the other day that food seems to have an effect on "the pain". So he's got me taking an acid blocker (think Prilosec but prescription only) for the next 10 days. If that helps then he'll have a look in my belly and find out whats going on. Thats a fun prospect huh?

So its always interesting here in sick-ville.

The thing is I don't really feel sick. I go to work, I go home, I slowly take the dog for a walk...
Then sometimes, WHAM. Like the other day I figured I'd work on my lawnmower but "the pain" stepped up and laid the hurt on me.
Some days are good though, Saturday Angie and I took Buster for a walk, full speed, long distance, no problems...
Sure would love to get it figured out.

4 stoves

Did I ever mention I have 4 stoves now?
#1 is the Coleman 425 I got from my grandmother
#2 is the Coleman 413 I got from Angie's grandfather
#3 is the Coleman 502 I bought on Craigslist
and
#4 is the Prepo I got from my grandmother.Its my only propane stove and as most propane stoves are pretty soulless and since stoves take up a lot of space it'll probably stay my only stove...
It is, like my Wenzel, pretty cheaply made. The case is just stamped steel welded at the edges. It uses a piano type hinge for the lid which was probably an off the shelf item.
Propane comes from little 6oz cans which are no longer available. Thats going to be a problem. One of the reasons I wanted this stove is because I hate using liquid fuel stoves in the house. For camping they're the bomb but in the house they smell. Propane is basically odorless so its a nice alternative when the power is out. This is also why I like kerosene lanterns, my 249 is mostly odorless too.

So since the small propane cans are no longer available I'm planning to rig up a way to run this with today's larger cans. Theres 2 ways to go about that:
#1. Adapt a valve system from a newer stove to go to this stove's burners. The problem with this idea is that theres no valve for the right side burner, just the valve on the can. Most newer propane stoves have 2 burner controls.

#2. Adapt from the newer type propane bottle to the older type mount. I like this one because if I were really clever I could hide some of the conversion parts inside an old can. The problem here is making sure my fabrication skills are up to the job. Propane is a high-pressure fuel so care is called for. This is not something that can be bodgered together with tape...

Another problem is that the hinge had rusted (okay it got painted when I was a kid...) and wasn't working and at some point the case had torn some where the hinge mounts. So thats got to get welded or brazed or whatever back together. Then the whole thing needs to be stripped and repainted so I'll need to remake the Prepo sticker in the lid. Its a pretty simple design so I'm hopeful its something I can accomplish...