Re: [Paddlewise] Your ancient Optimus

From: Craig Jungers <crjungers_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:51:32 -0800
On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 2:58 PM, Tord <tord_at_mindless.com> wrote:

>
> Sounds like the one I had problem with!
>
> Little red unit with a few valves that you set for priming
> and the you lighted it up!


It's an 8R which is military green in a square tin... all self contained.
All you do is open one valve, keep your hand against the tank (which pulls
out slightly) and light the white gas that drips into the priming pan. It
can get a little flamey, all right. Scared the heck out of a few college
girls who were out on camping dates with me back in the day. LOL


> Zippo fuel is probably white spirits, but here you can only
> buy it in very small cans, say 1/16 of a gallon?! So just too
> expensive to use as main fuel!
>

In most of Europe I went to a dry cleaners and refilled my fuel containers
with dry cleaning fluid (naptha). It worked great. In fact, most of the time
they'd just give me a refill of my one-liter fuel bottle. Even in France!!!
In fact the people and shop keepers of rural France were incredibly
hospitable to a lone American riding a Peugeot PX-10 with panniers and
modified gears for touring. I kept the sew-ups on though and installed
rock-pickers. I still have the bike and it's still relatively high
performance.

Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
www.nwkayaking.net
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************
Received on Wed Mar 10 2010 - 17:51:39 PST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:39 PDT