Heating WMO

[LCAM-01XA]

How do y'all do it? I was thinking of dropping my front tank, drilling like 4 holes in it, the running some 5/8 pipes through those, then welding the pipes up to the tank walls, then running engine coolant through the pipes - tank becomes a heat exchanger, WMO gets nice an warm, engine gets some extra cooling. Think this will work? Will two heating pipes be enough, or should I go up to four?

 

[GREASE FIRE]

How do y'all do it? I was thinking of dropping my front tank, drilling like 4 holes in it, the running some 5/8 pipes through those, then welding the pipes up to the tank walls, then running engine coolant through the pipes - tank becomes a heat exchanger, WMO gets nice an warm, engine gets some extra cooling. Think this will work? Will two heating pipes be enough, or should I go up to four?

if you are savvy enough to pull something like that off - sure go for it. Those tanks are thin, but i assume you would not even be thinking about a stunt like that if you were not an excellent welder. An even better idea would be to make a coolant-heated fuel pickup tube, that way in cold weather if the wmo was too thick to pump you would not have to wait for the whole tank to heat up - as soon as you have hot coolant flowing the wmo would be thinned out enough to flow.

paul

 

[cleithau]

Its a lot better to just heat enough to pump it then heat it more in the engine compartment or elseware closer to the IP. Look at some of the WVO stuff for sale and it should give you some good ideas for WMO heaters. Pretty much the same concept.

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Well I'm planning on running the heater inline and after the heater core, so I get maxium heat to it. I'm not good with welding sheetmetal, but a friend is a certified welder, and he can do it with his eyes closed. I don't think I wanna run two heaters, just more plumbing and more stuff to go wrong - I'd rather just go with more heating pipes in the tank...

 

[subway]

why not just run a hose in hose set up from the tank to the engine? adding heat to the tank is allot of work and you are heating much more of the fuel than you need to delaying when you can use it. i really dont think you need to heat as much as WVO either.

with a hose in hose you will get up to temp quicker so you use less diesel runnign down the road warming up.

just a tip: i dont know where the link is anymore but i saw a heated tank and he used a punch to add a hole. no chips from drilling, then he soldered them shut with copper tube in his tank.

 

[BigRigTech]

You could use copper tubing and solder it to the tank - easy to do and easy to repair.

 

[LCAM-01XA]

I don't really like the idea of soldering on the tank, I'd rather have it all nicely welded up. How do you do the hose in hose setup? How long does that heater need to be, and where is it best located?

 

[subway]

forgive my crude drawing but you basically take a T and put a compression fitting at one end for the fuel line and to barb fittings for the coolent lines. that way the fuel travels a seperate hose surrounded by the engines coolent heating it. just do the same set up for the other end and you can go as far as you need. hook that up right outside your fuel tank and run it right to your engine. i am planning on this set up to be in by winter. its a tried and proven set up for the WVO users, they dotn use copper though since it polymerizes the WVO but you dont have that problem with WMO. just a thought in case you want to be able to run anything and not worry.

 

[JeffMoss1]

I have the same set up as what Jred just described. I used copper since I got it for free. Haven't had problems yet. Hopefully I won't. I got some weld-on NPT tank fittings and threaded a npt to compression fitting right on there. So there's some 5/8" copper tubing that makes a few loops inside the tank. My tee was later on on the fuel line for the heated line. My system is way overkill. Probably gets the oil too hot.

Jeff

 

[69dieselfreak]

how long should that set up be just up to the water seperator and where could u tie into the cooling system maybe on the driver side head

 

[GREASE FIRE]

You could use copper tubing and solder it to the tank - easy to do and easy to repair.

can you actually solder copper to steel? that is something i never thought of - i just assumed you could not do it. Is there a special solder you have to use?
thanks,
Paul

 

[BigRigTech]

It can be done, I'm not sure what they use but gas tank repair shops have been soldering pin holes for years. I had one repaired on a used tank that I bought in Nevada for my 63 Mercury years ago....Still holding strong.

 

[mankypro]

I was thinking of getting a MIG welder anyway - is it really that hard to wire weld?

Also, do we think something like this http://www.plantdrive.com/shop/product.php?productid=16135&cat=250&page=1#detailed_images off my WMO tank fuel line would be enough to let my fuel pump get sae 30 out of the tank?

 

[LCAM-01XA]

Jred, interesting setup - gotta go look up the fittings selection in my local Lowe's hardware. Tho with heater like that, or any other line heater for that matter, how good is the in-tank pickup? I mean yeah the oil gets nice and hot by the time it reaches the engine, but inside the tank tis still like molasses, and it has to travel through the stock pickup tube and associated doodats in this thick nasty condition - ain't that a bit ******* the lift pump? That's why I wanna do the in-tank heater, cause this way all the fuel will get nice and more liquid right at the source, making it easy on the pump and the filter and the IP.

 

[mankypro]

I'm wondering if there would be an interesting way to attach a small radiator (plumbed with coolant) to my rear 45 gallon tank's outside. I'd really rather not drill into the custom tank if I can avoid it. Was thinking of lashing it on with something like plumber's tape or something.

I'd really like to run a heavy mix like 85/15 in the winter, so figuring out how to do it is one of my current priorities.