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From: Tord <tord_at_mindless.com>
subject: [Paddlewise] Your ancient Optimus
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:58:05 -0500
Craig,

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! I caught fire once, but had my
Helly Hansen gloves on so just slip them off and push
your hands into the snow, for a long, long time!

Have managed to get my MSRs to run with just kerosene,
but a little Zippo fuel always helps :-)! Just let a little kerosene
assemble in the cup, then add a little Zippo to make it easier
to light, and then wait till the sound changes :-)! Open the throttle
and Voila!

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!

Tord

PS Entire operating systems were crammed into 16K of memory,
in the days of CP/M and similar OS's from my youth!

Loved CP/M 3.0, by the way!
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From: Craig Jungers <crjungers_at_gmail.com>
subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Your ancient Optimus
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
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From: Chuck Holst <cholst_at_bitstream.net>
subject: RE: [Paddlewise] Your ancient Optimus
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:20:24 -0600
I once had a scary experience with my 8R. I had just refilled the tank, but
was distracted and forgot to tighten the cap, which I think was a special
cap for the accessory pump. Shortly after I lighted it, flames started
playing around the cap. I got everyone away from it in case it exploded, but
it merely whooshed out a jet of flame about a foot long, and then slowly
burned out. The gasket in the cap was crisped and useless, but I think I was
able to replace that cap with the original cap, which I had with me. At any
rate, after that I always carried a spare cap with me as long as I used the
8R, though the only other time I needed it was when a member of one of my
trips lost the cap to his stove.

Chuck Holst

-----Original Message-----

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


 

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