Well, as the starter of this thread (2.5 years ago!) it certainly has made for some interesting reading.

We just spent a year travelling throughout Europe and then into Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco for the winter. Since Europe is hideously expensive (at least for Canadians) we camped as much as possible. The Dragonfly worked reasonably well throughout that time, needing a good cleaning at about the halfway mark of the journey.

While in Tunisia (after about six months of continuous use with unleaded fuel) we started having trouble. The flame would extinguish easily and the boiling times increased. Also simmering (the best feature of the Dragonfly) became spotty. After much disassembling and cleaning without success I took out the in-line fuel filter. This improved performance significantly but not to the same level as with a clean fuel filter. Apparently the filter acts as a regulator of some sort. This filter is just a little white thing that looks like foam and couldn't be more than 2 cents to make.

In Morocco we arranged to have some supplies sent out, including a spare parts kit for the stove. ($140 in customs duties and taxes for $60 worth of stuff!!) Installing the new fuel filter included in the kit fixed all the problems we had. The stove worked perfectly again.

A few months later, when back in Europe, we started dropping by camping stores to see if they had these filters in stock. We eventually found that you must buy the entire maintenance kit in order to get the 2 cent filter. Back in Canada my Mom went to the Mountain Equipment Coop and mentioned the filter problem to the staff there. They rooted around and "borrowed" a filter from their demo model.

Other than the filter we had no problems with the stove. It was essentially self-cleaning with the shaker jet. Somewhere along the line (in Spain I think) I picked up a set of disposable, plastic gloves (used at self-serve gas stations for filling with Diesel) and wore those when filling the fuel bottle from the quick disconnect on the bike so no more smelly hands. Come to think of it, it wasn't the filling of the bottle that was the smelly part, it was unscrewing the top of the bottle when there was still some gasoline under pressure in the bottle.

When working well (with a clean filter) the Dragonfly boiled water very quickly and yet was able to simmer low enough to make rice pudding. A happy user

Ekke Kok
Redwood Meadows, AB
1989 BMW R100GS

__________________
Ekke Kok

'84 R100RT 141,000 km (Dad's!)
'89 R100GS 250,000 km (and ready for another continent)
'07 R1200GS Adventure 100,000 km (just finished Circumnavigating Asia)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

www.ekke-audrey.ca