Gutted Colibri

Exploded View

Originally uploaded by MikeOliveri.

John gave me this Colibri lighter a while back, and shortly thereafter I started having trouble with it. It would light off and on, but never consistently.

Since then I’ve tinkered with it off and on, trying to get it to work. I’d bleed the tank and refill it, blow out the burner, and so on, but never had any luck. It would spit out a brief flare, go out, and just hiss. I figured it was just air in the tank and bled it again, as well as trying a few tips from the Colibri site and a few other online sources.

After the final attempt, the filler valve suddenly stuck out of the bottom too far and the flame adjustment turned around and around rather than it’s normal half turn. The lighter belched out a three-inch yellow flame, then subsequently lit and stayed lit.

Only the flame was about a half inch longer than it should be and the flame adjustment wheel had no affect on it. I played with it some more and got the adjustment wheel to stop in one direction, but it had little affect on the flame and now the flame didn’t die upon letting go of the button; it continued to burn as long as a second after.

Not exactly safe for a butane jet, and the top of the lighter was getting hot (at least hotter than I remember it being under normal operation). I took it apart for a better look, and the result is what you see above.

The inner workings are rather simple and mostly plastic. I figure there’s just a problem with the valve on the tank, and maybe that prevented it from filling up or pressurizing or bleeding properly. I was going to toss it out, but it is a rather nice lighter on the outside it was a gift, so I kept all the exterior and metal parts.

If anyone’s got any better insight into these babies, I’d love to hear it. In the meantime I sent a note to Colibri asking how much it would cost me to replace the guts.