I have a Coleman Stove and Lantern still in original boxes, never opened. Bought at TG&Y in 1955 years. They are sitting in a safe next to a 5 liter of Frank Sinatra Jack Daniels that a old member here “Lurker” acquired for me, unopened still!
Wow! There is a TG&Y facebook page, people post all the time about they either worked at TG&Y or they collected TG&Y stuff and memobralia. There is also one for Otasco. If you're on facebook you might go there and in the search box find them. I really enjoy seeing what people post. As a youngster a lot of my stuff came from TG&Y and OTASCO.
At one time Coleman sold a funnel with a thick filter in it so one could use unleaded gas in a lantern.
They claimed it was safe for the lantern. I bought one and used it for years with no issues.
It’s been in the attic for probably 15 years now.
This thread has inspired me to get it back out and see if it still works.
Walmart sells white gas in the camping section. They have a generic and Coleman brand. It’s like 10 or 14 bucks between the two. Some Coleman lanterns and stoves have gray fuel tanks on them. Those are specifically designed to use regular automobile gasoline or the Coleman white fuel. The main difference is the generators have slightly larger orifices.
Like another member mentioned if you use regular gas and leave it in there it will gunk it up and cause issues. There is a trick though. You can put a cap full of fuel injector cleaner in with the gas and it will help prevent gunking up the generator. Whatever you do don’t store regular gas automobile in it. It will gunk up the generator.
If you know what you’re doing you can actually bring the generators back to life but it takes a little bit of work. Or you can just buy a new one. But the inside of the fuel tanks will get gummed up and will need to be taken apart to clean.
The old Coleman fuel or white gas, same thing, it last forever. It may get a green or blue color to it but it still works fine. As a side note the same thing as zippo fuel.
I’m a little bit of a small scale Coleman collector. I have a small collection. Nowhere near as big as the other guy that says he has 100. I have maybe 30 lanterns and maybe a dozen different types of Coleman Stove’s.
I got into collecting them just because it’s cool old Americana stuff that never stops working properly if taken care of. I remember using the stuff as a kid going fishing. They’re good to have around in case you lose power too. Crack a window for ventilation and you can still cook with them and have light.
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I have some of the old aluminum Coleman funnels. They have a blue type of cloth around a ring that work as a filter. Also a few of the new red ones that have some type of white hard material in them that work as a filter. I think they mostly were there for straining out any trash that was in the gas. I’m not sure how much or what they would actually do for the unleaded gas.
My understanding is most of this kind of liquid fuel pump up stuff was designed for white gas, which was just unleaded gasoline with no additives.
There were some special application lanterns that ran on other fuels, but most were white gas.
Later on they came out with "coleman fuel" which is considerably safer to handle and worked in the white gas designs.
The pump up units were a bit more temperamental than the propane units.
All work nicely if maintained properly
There were some special application lanterns that ran on other fuels, but most were white gas.
Later on they came out with "coleman fuel" which is considerably safer to handle and worked in the white gas designs.
The pump up units were a bit more temperamental than the propane units.
All work nicely if maintained properly
They certainly needed to filter out any trash.
I got a tour of the Coleman plant in Wichita once where they build the lanterns. The orfices that move the gas to the generator was only 1.5 thousands of an inch for single mantles and 2.5 for double mantles.
That must have been cool. I’ve read about the place.
as a kid i lived near a OTASCO,, till i bought a wrench,, Lifetime warrenty!!!!! ha, broke off the open end, took it back ,, they had to have ALL the broken pieces ,,to honor the warrenty, well i could not find all the pieces some fell in the grass,, sorrry no deal kid....well i never went back there,, told every one i could what they did to me,,,also told every one that the nearby target or whatever it was called back then ,, had every thing and more and cheaper prices too..i walked 3 more blocks to the bigger store,, and so did most people in my neighbor hood,,, and what happened??? 5-7 years later OTASCO went out of buisness,, hurah!!!!
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