Yeah, mine's had about the same amount of replacement parts, near as I can remember. Put quite a few gallons of fuel thru that. Almost certain that I bought mine from EMS. Ever forget to remove the key when it was running? I think that might have been the REAL reason I started carrying needle nose pliers back then, LoL. It's still one of the easiest stoves to pack and as long as you don't let the tank run dry (ahem - that's why I had to replace the wick) they're darned reliable. Same guts as the 8r or 10r, I think - the box stoves. For reasons beyond my understanding, I have seen many of the Optimus box stoves leak, flare, and pop the pressure relief - too exciting for me. Almost every person I knew who used one from ~ early 70s to mid 80s - had that happen at least once. Some fixed/replaced, some went to other stoves. I'm sure I personally saw more than 6 of the Optimus go up in flames. Wierd.<br><br>Yes, the windscreen has to be removed to use the pump - but it was well worth it. I needed that in the Arctic. It's not a great extreme cold weather stove, but I made do with it a long time. I had (have) a little disk of 1/8" plywood with three tiny round-head screws arranged so that I could "snap" the rim of the tank onto the disk pretty securely and then put the stove on a scrap of ensolite. When the snow is 60 feet deep... it's bad for the stove to core down - spills the soup <grin>. And lordy, the wind could test my patience. I fiddled with various wind shielding arrangements including in-situ materials (snow, rocks, whatever), and never did totally whip that. I'm hoping some of the GREAT memories that stove brings back are imbued in it as I pass it to one of my sons - and hope he creates his own good memories with it.<br><br>Next "serious" stove was an MSR XGK - I think they had just come out with the XGK, and it hurt me to pay that much for a stove (they are actually cheaper now than they were then, plus the dollar is worth a lot less - practically give them away now). There's a stove that makes a racket! As I'm sure you know, they're far more complex mechanically than the simple Svea, but I have never had a lick of trouble with it. What a rocket ship! If the object is to boil water, that's the stove. And that foil windscreen really works great. The drawback, similar to the Svea, but writ large, is that those primus-type roarer burners have almost no "throttle" - it's off or it's running at "melt the pot" speed. Difficult to cook with, but a great way to boil water. Very awkward stove to pack. I sewed up little canvas pouches (I had the canvas and sometimes needed to pack the stove up FAST - ie, still a bit hot), complete with what folks now call ALICE clips, and usually rigged the pounchs on the exterior of whatever pack I was using. Still use that stove, of course, and still carry the rebuild parts with it, although all I've ever replaced was a few o-rings (that was on spec, not because there was a problem).<br><br>One of the stoves that overlapped those two was - don't laugh - a Coleman Sportster (didn't call them that then). You know - Coleman type burner on top of a single mantle lantern body. I rarely carried that "on my back" - in a pulk, stowed in an over-snow vehicle (if I had one to use), in my canoe, etc. It was a good little stove - I saw LOTS of those in use by far north native Americans. Someone stole it... never did replace it. In really cold weather (way sub-zero) I would usually have to remove the pump plunger, flex the leather cup out, and put it back together before I could pump it up for a cold start. I think synthetic oil would solve that problem, but it didn't occur to me at the time. Cooked a lot of real food on that rascal.<br><br>(I'm sticking to talking about stoves that worked well for me, BTW - skip the "failures") <br><br>Most frequently used stove for quite some time is my now-ancient Coleman Peak I - really should replace it with the newer version that has an alloy tank instead of the all-steel model I have. It does everything I want in a packable stove and stows almost as easily as the Svea - I sorta consider it my "current" Svea stove. It has never given me any protest and I'm getting tired of keeping spare parts in my repair kit, because it's chugging along good as new with all the orginal parts (I did replace the fuel filler cap with a tethered cap for fear of losing the cap some frigid place and time). Compression nut leaked a few drops once after the stove rattled around in the back of my truck for 3,600 + miles - didn't catch on fire, I shut it down, and tightened the nut a tic with my pliers and that was years ago - no problems since.<br><br>I used a Peak I duel-fuel (multi-fuel?) in Africa for quite some time because I knew I couldn't get white gas (or even mogas where I was). After I ran thru some local kero I bought before I left "civilization", I burned JP5 in it - it was a "single fuel theater", so we used JP5 for everything. Real PITA and the outside of the stove was forever slick and "stinky" with kero or JP5 - nasty. Stove burned great after it preheated. Preheating with JP5 or kero looks like an oil refinery fire... I gave the stove away after a few months and used other methods of heating stuff up. I probably would have kept the stove if I'd had white gas to use in it, but I hated it by the time I gave it to someone. Just as well - the fat little tank didn't stow as nicely as the sleeker old Peak I of mine.<br><br>BTW, I found Blazo noticably superior to Coleman fuel in extreme cold. Hard to find Blazo around here though, unless I want to order a 55 gallon drum of it. When I was a kid there was a gas station here (probably more than one) that had a pump for... white gas. Dad never bought Coleman fuel until they went out of business...<br><br>Of course, we have a couple of big green boxes for non-backpacking campouts and other reasons. A "large" two burner with a propane converter and hose stashed inside so we can run it off white gas or disposable tank propane or bulk tank. Also a 3 burner propane-only one (we sometimes cook for more than just us on family rendezvous, and the family is getting large). Kid picked up a brand new "classic" two burner off the neighbor's curb a while back - they never even fired it up. Bought it and a really nice lantern intending to go "camping", never camped, used the lantern once during an extended power outage, and then "spring-cleaned" it to the curb. He'll take those with him when he leaves home, I'm sure. Hard to beat those big green boxes in a base camp.<br><br>New stove buyers have a bewildering array of really decent stoves to choose from at very attractive prices now. Buyer's market, I think. Whisperlite is a really nice one - couple of aquaintances have them.<br><br>I saw pics of that W.T. Kirkman gadget, too. Nifty. The cold side radiators make it seem a little bulky, but hey, it's using waste heat to deliver 2 1/4 watts DC - not bad.<br><br>Too long a post already - I'll quit here before Chris banishes me to the Campfire Forum forever...<br><br>Regards,<br><br>Tom