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Restoring a Vintage Coleman 413G Camp Stove

The Coleman 413G camp stove as it was when purchased.
The Coleman 413G camp stove as it was when purchased.

In addition to my Coleman 220J pressure lantern, I also picked up a vintage Coleman 413G camp stove at the same flea market for $25. This is the larger of the two classic Coleman pressure camp stoves—I’d like to get the smaller 425 at some point as well.

The plunger with the original leather pump cup.
The plunger with the original leather pump cup.

The stove was in pretty decent shape to start with. As with the lantern, I immediately noticed that the pump wasn’t holding pressure and appeared to also have the rubber pump cup, so I ordered a replacement leather pump cup for it as well. However, it turned out that the stove actually already had a leather cup, it was just almost black with oil and age. So, I was able to clean and oil it and bring it back around to building pressure successfully, and now I have a spare on hand in case it fails down the road.

The old 3-piece filler cap alongside the new 1-piece cap.
The old 3-piece filler cap alongside the new 1-piece cap.

The tank had one of the old 3-piece filler caps (although not one of the notoriously dangerous ones), and I went ahead and replaced it with a new one-piece brass cap just to be safe and ensure it holds pressure.

The underside of the old 3-piece filler cap with rust and worn-out gasket versus the new 1-piece cap.

I gave the whole stove a good wipe-down, then cleaned up the exposed metal parts with a wire brush and steel wool and applied Ballistol to keep them rust-free.

Putting the Coleman 413G camp stove to work!
Putting the Coleman 413G camp stove to work!

With some fresh fuel in the tank, it was time for a test firing. The stove lit up right away, and after re-pumping the tank, I was able to get a nice, blue, almost invisible flame on both the main and secondary burners. This larger stove model will fit 2 12″ cast iron pans on it, which should work out really well for family camping trips. It fried an egg easily: success!