Well, the whole story on the Svea 123 stove that I owned..it was the older style that you had to constantly remove the brass valve and poke a special needle through it to clean the carbon out. During that process at some point the valve was overtightened and it had a hairline crack in it. Every time you tried to get the stove going it would fizzle out. I nearly threw it off a cliff but did not want to litter. I found out later that the cause of the problems was the cracked valve and replaced it and also added the little pump and cap to provide pressure for startup.
Well, that's really unusual behavior for a Svea 123 that you would have to clean it frequently -- unless you were using automotive gasoline instead of "white" gasoline (e.g. Coleman fuel). I think you may mean that you had to remove the burner bell to clean it. If you were truly removing the valve to clean it, uh, no offense, but you were doing it wrong.
If it got a crack, then indeed it wouldn't hold pressure and would not work properly, but that (a crack) is fairly rare also. They're really tough stoves.
I think my real issue with it was the height and pot stability. I was also doing a lot of winter mountain hiking on snowshoes and Nordic skis and it just wasn't all that happy in the cold.
Using a stove that relies on thermal feed back in the snow is going to be tough, but the little mini pump should have taken care of that. The stove is a little high, so I can see how you might indeed have some challenges there.
Sorry you had such a bad experience. Too bad I wasn't along. I could have shared some of my tips and tricks, and I'd have enjoyed the skiing.
The Svea 123 has been a real work horse for me, needing very little maintenance.
HJ
Previous Topic
Index
