The Coleman Shuffle

As I sit here at home due to school closure (probably an over-reaction as apparently a school teacher in our district met someone in Seattle at some point who has apparently now been diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus and apparently is home with a cold so pending testing, we are closed) I am looking for things to do.

Decided to tear apart an old Coleman 413G stove because it has issues.  Namely the whole manifold bursts into flames after it runs for a while.

Backstory: We used to have a family stove.  Probably purchased in the early to mid 60s.  I had it for a while, then it disappeared.  I thought a sister borrowed it but all family members disclaim any knowledge so I don't know what happened.  Perhaps ex-wife loaned it out and it never came back.  Either way, not the end of the world as they are a dime a dozen.

Neighbors, hearing I was in the market, gave me their old stove, the aforementioned 413G (no date stamp but only produced from 1965 to 1969).  I replaced the pump seal as it wouldn't hold pressure, fired it up successfully, and went camping.  Halfway through making dinner the manifold suddenly burst into yellow flame, indicating some sort of major air leak (yellow flame means too much air in air-fuel mixture). Shut it down, made dinner with another stove that a friend had along, put it in the garage until such time as I had time to take a look.

Meanwhile, last week I saw a brand new, never used Coleman 425F (date stamped March 1991) for $40 on craigslist so I bought it.  It is about 4" narrower but a nice stove and presumably will work perfectly since it's never even had gas put into the tank.

Today, sitting at home,  I decided it was time to tear into the older, bigger stove.  Decided to do a little testing and try to replicate the problem and sure enough, as soon as it warmed up it promptly burst into flames.  Shut it down and started digging.

At first I thought maybe the generator needed to be rebuilt (that's the long skinny tube that runs from the tank and across the right hand burner) but the more I looked, the more I thought there might be a problem.  Take a look at the next picture.

See the problem (other than the rust)?  The generator doesn't actually go all the way into the manifold.  When I browsed around on the internet all the pictures I could find showed that fuel head inside the manifold opening.

So let's back out a little.  I saw this when I got the stove, but assuming that it had been used as it sat, I didn't give it much thought.

Someone swapped out the fuel tanks and cut new slots for the fuel tank tabs.  Not only did they not cut them super straight (as you can see from the angle of the generator), but turns out this tank doesn't fit this stove.  A little more digging uncovered a Fuel Tank Compatibility chart.  Although it was possible that the only compatibility issue is the location of the mounting tabs and the generator, it seems odd that this wouldn't reach.  A little more digging and discovered that there are actually several different generators, including different lengths for the 413 and the 425.  My suspicion, this is a smaller generator for a smaller stove.

So, I guess I am in the market for a fuel tank (the chart I downloaded tells you how to identify the different tanks) or perhaps I have a tank-free stove for sale.  I don't know.  I'll probably hit the swap meet a few times and see what I discover before making a decision.  In the meantime I've learned a lot about  cleaning and restoring Coleman stoves from Old Town Coleman although many of his links are broken so I'm wondering if this is still maintained.  I sent him an email so hopefully I'll find out at some point.

Updates:

• New fuel tanks are expensive ($60); 
• I found a virtually unused 413G (dated 1966) on craigslist for $20 so I bought that; 
• This stove is going to be sold for parts on craigslist when I get around to it;
• Frank at Old Town Coleman got back to me so I sent him the pictures in case he has any ideas.  Seems like a pleasant fellow.