Help! Pressurized Kerosene Stove

[maury]

Thanks for the diagram, I know this will be helpful over time mine looks the same as the Taylor. The part that had me challenged was the control tube with cotter pin connection. While resolving an oven drip issue from the adjoining fitting I removed the pin and parts and for the life of me could not figure out the rod in tube with pin connection when reassembling. I assumed a part was missing or disappeared until I discovered the matching hole connecting concept..

When turned all the way to left the control knob says “clean”. What does this do and is it something I should regularly use?

[MicHughV]

What a topic. Never thought I'd see this topic on this forum.
I had a kerosene stovetop on my first boat. No oven.
Finding the alcohol and good clean kerosene was sometimes an issue though.
From time to time, I had flareups, mostly because I was being cheap and not filling the pre-heat cup up enuff.
But overall, a remarkable device. Easy to clean and service too. Mine saw 15 years of service. Can't beat that.

[Bycrick]

I solved the burner cleaning problem by having two sets of burners. When the first set started clogging up on the stove, they’d get swapped out with a set that had been soaking a a gallon can of carburetor cleaner. Nasty stuff but it would eventually clean out the gunk with the necessity of trying to get a wire up into the burner. But for the first few years, I had trouble with leaks around the burner base washer. A constant PITA until I discovered that it was the same washer as on my old VW oil pan drain plug. Bought a bag of 100, always used a new one, and never had another problem.

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by maury

When turned all the way to left the control knob says “clean”. What does this do and is it something I should regularly use?

If you've got it all assembled correctly, there should be a little needle inside the burner (#22 on that diagram). With the knob turned to the right the needle should be down and out of the way, but turning the knob left will raise the needle and it will poke out of the jet clearing it of any soot ... you can use a thin piece of wire to clean the jet, but the built in needle is waaaay more convenient.

Yes it is something you should do semi-regularly ... not necessarily every time. If you think that fuel isn't coming out of the jet properly, it will often make all the difference.

[hpeer]

They call it a PRICKER, as said above it cleans the jet. Many folks just get into the habit of turning the knob all the way Left when turning off. But also sometimes if you have a poor burn it helps to run the knob Left and back a few times, running the Pricker through the jet hole. Sometimes it breaks then the jet gets clogged up. Order some spare Prickers. Easy to replace if you have the correct special wrench, or make one out of a (1/2”?) bolt, just cut a slot with a cut off wheel. It also helps to have a really big tweezer, think Harbor Freight.

[CarinaPDX]

My Taylor evolved a bit over the years. Initially it came with soldered brass tank, but later converted to stainless. The initial plumbing had a small orifice at the top of the tank pickup tube, in order to reduce surging. This orifice could plug up if the fuel was contaminated (e.g. with rust) and needed occasional cleaning. The later plumbing and stainless tank did away with this orifice but added an inline filter between the tank and burners, and individual orifices under each burner to more effectively reduce surging. The filter mostly prevented these orifices from plugging (they could still plug with carbon in some cases). So my recommendation is to take a very close look at everything and make sure you know where any anti-surge orifices are located, and check them for buildup. The small filter has worked very well, even when I had significant rust problems from my stainless bulk supply tank contaminating the fuel (I never had a rust problem with either pressure tank).

I have used liquid oven cleaner (lye) to good effect when cleaning the burners. It is a good idea to have a spares kit for the burners, especially the sealing washers for the bottom and the graphite gland for the spindle, as well as spare prickers and jets.

Greg