Block heating idea

[Skidmark]

hey, so the block heater from my 85 6.9l has been removed. i have been looking for ways to heat things up when its cold out. arctic fox makes these heating pads. would something like this work and where would i want to put it so that it heats the oil and coolant? thanks for any info!

http://www.arctic-fox.com/sitepages/pid55.php

 

[rubberfish]

Looks like a nicer setup than the magnet type.

 

[Exekiel69]

Don't know about the coolant part but for the oil it look pretty obvious. Does it get so cold there? I guess here is no better spot than the one used from factory. Is this bc it is a 6.9 block?

 

[oldmisterbill]

Radiater hose inline heaters work fine

 

[rubberfish]

Radiater hose inline heaters work fine

I have one of those that goes in one of the
heater hoses. For the life of me , I can't
get it to work properly. The instructions are
very specific about flow, and I can see why.
If it's not permitted to flow exactly like they say,
it won't work worth a damn. It will not flow around
corners or up the slightest inline. POS
Maybe I just have bad luck. No biggie.
I'm not saying they're no good. just fussy.

 

[riotwarrior]

Well I am kinda partial to circulating heaters. They tend to help keep the coolant throughout the system warmer which makes for a toasty warm cab quick like!

This is the one I have.... http://www.gillettegenerators.com/accs/engheat3.html
I got mine local at Napa

 

[rubberfish]

That's like the one I have. I go out in the
morning, and it's the only thing that's warm.
It doesn't seem to be able to get the
coolant back into the head.
I'm not sure why I haven't destroyed it yet.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

i have been looking for ways to heat things up when its cold out.

I installed one of those big RED canister heaters, 1500watt--?2500maybe??--, KATS brand(I think), that goes in the heater-hose system.

Those things get super-hot, real quick.

Where many fail in the installation of these is that they simply cut the heater-hose and stick them in; plumbed in thus, they only perform erratically, at best, if not at all.

HEAT GOES UP.


I installed a TEE in the radiator drain-****, with the red canister mounted to the left-side bottom of the frame/rail, then a 5/8 hose straight up to top of the radiator, then 90* ELL, then hose straight alongside the HOT battery-cable across the top of the radiator, then swept downward to a "Y" fitting into the lower heater-hose where it enters the engine-block.

Mounted thus, cold liquid enters the bottom of the heater/canister, boils, and is forced up the hose by convection, across the top of the engine-compartment, through the "Y", and into the engine-block.

When this system was on my old 6.9-IDI, it got the engine lots warmer, much quicker, than the freeze-plug element ever did.

On a ZERO-degree day, I could turn on this heater for a couple hours, and the temperature gauge would be climbing towards normal, before I cranked the engine.

If I wanted warm starts in cold weather, one of these canister-type heaters is the way to go.

 

[RLDSL]

hey, so the block heater from my 85 6.9l has been removed. i have been looking for ways to heat things up when its cold out. arctic fox makes these heating pads. would something like this work and where would i want to put it so that it heats the oil and coolant? thanks for any info!

http://www.arctic-fox.com/sitepages/pid55.php

Those pad heaters do a great job of heating the oil so it will flow better at startup ( and the engine will spin faster making starts easier ) but they don't do a whole lot for heating the rest of the engine up, especially if there's a stout wind blowing. A pad heater along with a coolant heater will really make cold starts easy.
If you've got a few extra bucks to blow ( OK , a lot of extra bucks to blow ) try one of these

---------Robert

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

Some time in the past, I suggested a house-type water heater, filled with coolant, with a circulating pump, and quik-coupled lines that could be snapped into the engines coolant hose system.

My idea was to connect the hoses, when parked, and hot coolant would circulate through the engine, until it was time to start again.

It turned out, someone had worked at a big transit bus garage and they already had a system, just like my idea, except it was big enough to keep a whole fleet of busses warm.

Maybe someone has a link to the pictures of that system.

 

[82F100SWB]

Most of the bush guys around here that don't have espar/webasto heaters use just such a system for their equipment, only they use their half tons to do the heating, using quick couplers on the heater hose lines on the pickup. It works pretty good, but, I know most of the guys I know who have switched prefer the oil fired heater route as it's much faster.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

prefer the oil fired heater route as it's much faster.

You may be talking about the same thing; but, I recently saw a site that made diesel-fired engine heaters that drew from the fuel-tank.

These units were not near as space-consuming as I would have pictured them.

I can't recall if they had some kind of circulating pump, or not.

 

[82F100SWB]

Yup, that's what I'm speaking of, check out the link RLDSL posted.