Kel-Lite KA98164

astark

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My dad passed away 02/26 and I got the old Kel-Lite back I had given him many years ago. Its pretty scratched up and does not work but has sentimental value to me. I would love to have it fixed and am wondering if you guys could direct me to where it could be brought back to at least operating condition or even upgraded. Also, if anyone could tell me approximately when this four D small head was made it would help me to narrow down when I gave it to him, the wife thinks it may have been late seventies. Any information you guys might have on this flashlight would be appreciated and I thank you in advance, my dad loved this flashlight and I do too.
 

archimedes

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Very sorry for your loss.

I think @bykfixer will likely drop by here soon with answers to all of your questions about this torch ....

Could you post up some photos for us ?
 
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bykfixer

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Thanks Archi. Liftd4R is also a good resource for Kel-Lite history.

Sorry about your loss astark. Perhaps your pop and mine are hanging out at the big target range in the sky. Mine was called home 2/27/11.

Now if the light has a black plastic slider to activate it, that would have been made from about 1969 to about 1973. One with a metal slider would have been 73-ish to (Lift'd can correct if I'm wrong here) 1982-3? After that they took on a Maglite look with a push button switch. Black buttons on the metal slider switch are late 70's.

The early ones had a flat tailcap with no room to store a spare bulb. The next group had a tailcap that could hold a bulb. The 3rd group, again looked like a Maglite tailcap.

I'll pm you with Don Kellers e-mail address. He restarted Kel-Lite.com and sells parts there.

In terms of upgrades, flashlightlens dot com sells polycarbonate and glass lenses in the sizes of the Kel-Lites.

IMG_20180311_165947.jpg

Bottom is the 2nd type with a bulb holding tailcap and small head.
Middle two are the 1st type. One has a large head and the other a medium head.
Top is the 3rd type made when they hooked up with Streamlight.
 
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LiftdT4R

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Very nice light and sorry to hear about your pop. It's great that you want to keep this light going to remember him by. I'm sure he'd be proud!

The light looks like a 4D small head 2nd Gen Kel-Lite. It looks like all of the parts are there which is good because there's not many parts floating around for these. There are for the 1st gens but not these 2nd gens. According to Don Keller's site, http://www.kellite.com/kel-lite-generations/ they were made from 1974 to 1983 after Don left Kel-Lite and Norm Nelson took over. I have several of these style lights and the earlier ones have sequentially serials without the letter prefix. They just count up from where the 1st gens left off. The serials started to get very long around 1976 so they went to the KA prefix. After the serials got too high they'd flop to KB and start over. Then KC, etc. Streamlight carried this numbering scheme over when they started producing the 3rd Gen Kel-Lites. As far as I know there is not database for the dates on the serials like Maglite has. I can say pretty confidently this light is from 1976 to 1978 based on the lights I have and have seen.

The light operation is fairly simple. It's identical to the 1st Gens and I've written a blog post about restoring these: http://otherflashlights.blogspot.com/2017/06/kel-lite-repair.html

It's a fun, worthwhile endeavor. Just wanted to check with you that the batteries aren't stuck though? If they are it can still be done but it is very time consuming. If you feel in over your head gimme a shout though. I can restore these and source a fair amount of parts and get them back running for around ~$30 or so. If you're near NJ/PA I'll do it for a 12er of Yuengling if you can drop it off. If the reflector is shot though, you really need an entire donor light so you'll be into it for $60 assuming you can find a small head with a good reflector. Feel free to gimme a shout too if you need any guidance if you try it yourself. If you post some pics here when you get it apart there are many people that have worked on these lights that can help out.

Also, when you get it running do NOT store it with batteries in it. Like all alkalines they'll leak and ruin the light.
 
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bykfixer

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Pictures are a great help astark. Nice light btw.

Good lookin out KF. Yup, looks like it won't take a lot to make it go.

IMG_20180311_215833.jpg

The metal strip how it should look

IMG_20180311_215758.jpg

How it should work.

Note the tailcap spring.

If the metal strip breaks you can get a new one from Don. If worse came to worse they can easily be made too.
The first two generations of Kel-Lite are very user serviceable.
 
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astark

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Holy Smoke !! Thank You so much guys, I just followed your recommendations and it works !! And I mean works well, even the momentary on and off, I can hardly believe it, it was that simple and easy to get running so well, thank you again so very much :)

 
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bykfixer

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It looks like the Photobucket coin crunchers found you astark.
Basically you hit edit and to the right of the link type ~original between jpg and [IMG... looks like this...
jpg~original[IMG
 
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astark

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Thanks bykfixer, I didn't understand your fix on the picture but got up again at least temporarily. I'm not all that smart when it comes to computers or even flashlights for that matter. But just last night I was showing the wife this thread after sharing my excitement on the fix, she said what a good bunch of guys and how lucky I am to be part of this forum with people like you, and I could not agree more :)
 

bykfixer

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It's a good bunch of folks here.

Us flashlight nuts have to stick together.


Basically, a bunch of people were using the 'free' version of photobucket picture hosting for their pictures on eBay, Pintrest etc and profitting without PB getting any of the revenue. Their solution was to break the links and place a prohibitive monthly cost to use their service to host photos. To add insult to injury the spot where the photo was is now a photobucket logo. Yikes.

The ~original fix has largely been succesful. These days Imgur is a popular hosting site. I use ones called TinyPic or PostImage. Post image asks for a donation. Tiny Pic is a no cost one.
 
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LiftdT4R

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+1 for Imgur and CPF!

Someone's got to keep these old lights running! Simply amazing, these lights are going on 50 years old and still run like a top. I love the Kel-Lites because they have the fewest parts out of most lights I've come across. Nice simple design!
 
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