Diesel cab heater

[Tinbasherdan]

@owas can you take some more pictures of where you’ve put the diesel heater please? Going to get one for mine and wondering where to put it

 

[owas]

The wiring goes back to the second battery now so it's not such a birds nest now

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Ahh, number one problem for me is my battery box is full of batteries might end up going in the drivers side toolbox then. Do you find you don’t need to use the factory asthmatic fan to clear the screen? Mines about goosed so I’m considering just doing away with it completely

 

[owas]

Ahh, number one problem for me is my battery box is full of batteries might end up going in the drivers side toolbox then. Do you find you don’t need to use the factory asthmatic fan to clear the screen? Mines about goosed so I’m considering just doing away with it completely

Well it'll melt ice/snow but I still use the fan to blow the air on the screen and keep it from fogging up, I use a bilge blower before the main fan too, it's just bodged into the ducting that goes to the wing

I've realised I've got a leak in mine though so it's permanently blowing out the drivers footwell vent, going to block that and then it'll be almost car like

Cubby box is a popular place to put them in a defender

 

[owas]

One reason I didn't want to go in the under the drivers seat is because then it's blowing hot air directly at your legs while your driving (if you use it while driving) you can't move your legs out the way really, but a passenger can

 

[Tinbasherdan]

id duct it away from my legs if I went that way. Cubby box is a no due to needing to be able to remove it for dog related reasons!

 

[DAPPH]

Been sat reading the thread.. thinking about de coking the heaters & MOT testing . etc .

There used to be some catalyst pellets used so you can run a old leaded fuel engine on non leaded fuel . They work well as They align molecules in the fuel which results in a much cleaner burn .

On advice of a guy called Mike who owned a car tune up business ( proper engineer who played with RR jet engines for many years at RR ) I put a tube/ cage of four of them for a 2 litre car in my BX 19 GTI turbo diesel .
It started off when I went to Mike for a pre MOT check of the car to make sure things were ok , as getting crippled kind of stopped me being an electro mechanical engineer.

Got an exhaust test done by Mike it was towards the limits , but everything else was ok MOT'd with out any problems

. I purchased the catalyst by mail order for about £67 .
Put the catalyst cage of pellets in the tank filled it up ran it for three weeks , filing up at least once a week . Then went back to Mike , the engine showed a remarkable clean burn in the exhaust gases .
A few weeks ago I've seen an advert for such catalysts £ 35 for a 2 litre engine ….. It might be worth while getting some for your heaters fuel tank ….

Why didn't I think of this before in fact it might well be worth dropping a three or four packs in the 1200 litre central heating oil fuel tank close to the outlet or put just one of the tubes of pellets them in an inline oil filter body less the filter on the outside of the oil tank .

The catalysts don't wear out or erode they were developed by the Brits and given to the Russians in WW2 so they could run Spitfires on cheap dirty Russian lead free fuel & still have Spitfire performance ..

 

[sako243]

id duct it away from my legs if I went that way. Cubby box is a no due to needing to be able to remove it for dog related reasons!

What are you planning on putting it in - 110 or 90? Can't remember what your 6BT build is (assuming it's that).

If 110 there's plenty of options under the rear tub, there's quite a nice big space behind the rear wheels that you could easily fold up a box to go in there to house it. I've got a P38 air tank (10l if I remember correctly) tucked up behind there to run the two Ashlockers and various other stuff (good source of air for the plasma ironically because the pump is so powerful).

There's actually a fair bit of space above a standard LT230 below the centre seat / cubby box floor. Probably just enough space to fit a diesel heater (the front has a few inches of clearance if I remember correctly.

 

[Cobbler]

I used tin inserts in my Volvo 240GLT, it was designed to run on 5 star, didn’t need the leaded part though. If I ran it on unleaded, it pinked very badly, put tin inserts in & it ran great, 260k until the body fell to bits. I know they are regarded like snake oil by a lot of people, but it really did work, the engineering adviser to the Civil Service Motoring Association (CSMA) ran long term tests for many thousands of miles to prove them.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

What are you planning on putting it in - 110 or 90? Can't remember what your 6BT build is (assuming it's that).

If 110 there's plenty of options under the rear tub, there's quite a nice big space behind the rear wheels that you could easily fold up a box to go in there to house it. I've got a P38 air tank (10l if I remember correctly) tucked up behind there to run the two Ashlockers and various other stuff (good source of air for the plasma ironically because the pump is so powerful).

There's actually a fair bit of space above a standard LT230 below the centre seat / cubby box floor. Probably just enough space to fit a diesel heater (the front has a few inches of clearance if I remember correctly.

I could put it on the bulkhead in place of the std blow, but I’d like to keep it in th cab, bit more waterproof

 

[owas]

I could put it on the bulkhead in place of the std blow, but I’d like to keep it in th cab, bit more waterproof

The Chinese control boards arnt potted (if that's the correct word ) like the webasto, so not very good with water

Saying that, I drove through some large puddles forgetting it was in the battery box and it still works.

It is recommended not to plumb into standard heater hoses, maybe it gets too hot?

 

[sako243]

If you want something good for potting electronics I'd recommend Magic Gel
https://cpc.farnell.com/raytech/magic-gel/magic-gel-1-litre-pack/dp/SA02396

Not particularly cheap but it's 100% waterproof, can peel it off if you need to and is squidgy - it's actually so flexible you can shove screwdrivers into it to adjust potentiometers and it won't break the seal.

 

[DAPPH]

I used tin inserts in my Volvo 240GLT, it was designed to run on 5 star, didn’t need the leaded part though. If I ran it on unleaded, it pinked very badly, put tin inserts in & it ran great, 260k until the body fell to bits. I know they are regarded like snake oil by a lot of people, but it really did work, the engineering adviser to the Civil Service Motoring Association (CSMA) ran long term tests for many thousands of miles to prove them.

The CSMA was where I first heard of them ……. patent held by a guy called David Locke IIRC ….. When Mike backed up what was being said in the CSMA mag I knew it ought to be tried . I dropped a cage of the catalysts in my daughters BX RE14 as well & she managed to run it till it got stolen close on 180,000 miles later . The plugs were almost as clean as the day they were put in brand new , seem to remember she was getting top end of the MPG figures too .

 

[Cobbler]

David Locke, that’s sounds right, I had a long chat to him at the time. From what I recall the tin pellets have to be in contact with steel to work, that’s why they are in a metal gauze sock as so many tanks were coated on the inside & plastic was starting to be used. I asked how it worked & no-one really understood, but no-one would put up the money to investigate it properly. I had it on a string in the Volvo so I could remove it if it didn’t work or move it to another vehicle, that was David Locke’s suggestion.

Edit
I had similar with the plugs, they did about 100 thousand, still looked new, at service time took them out, looked & put them back in. No electrode erosion at all.

 

[DAPPH]

David Locke, that’s sounds right, I had a long chat to him at the time. From what I recall the tin pellets have to be in contact with steel to work, that’s why they are in a metal gauze sock as so many tanks were coated on the inside & plastic was starting to be used. I asked how it worked & no-one really understood, but no-one would put up the money to investigate it properly. I had it on a string in the Volvo so I could remove it if it didn’t work or move it to another vehicle, that was David Locke’s suggestion.

Edit
I had similar with the plugs, they did about 100 thousand, still looked new, at service time took them out, looked & put them back in. No electrode erosion at all.

I too had both cartridges on my car & my daughters car on a nylon retrieval cord .
Will have to see where a similar product is on sale .


Found some on Amazon Spitfire-Fuel-Catalyst-8-Pellets/dp/B00J227QKO
.. they are not in a steel cage though .. perhaps it was just David Lockes way of keeping the lumps of material in contact with each other making them a longer larger surface area anode/cathode . Don't think they were pure tin though ...… much more like an alloy .

 

[Cobbler]

He was adamant that the contact with steel was something to do with the reaction, just on its own it didn’t work.

 

[winchman]

The wiring goes back to the second battery now so it's not such a birds nest now

Problem we are having is the battery box is missing from Winchboys Land Rover, its just got a really poor wooden one

 

[Farside]

There used to be some catalyst pellets used so you can run a old leaded fuel engine on non leaded fuel . They work well as They align molecules in the fuel which results in a much cleaner burn .

I used tin inserts in my Volvo 240GLT,

That's the trouble with these kinds of things; there's never any hard and fast proof - everything is anecdotal.
If the mere presence of pellets of tin and/or lead in the petrol tank could solve the problems, grow your hair back and make you win the Lottery, don't you think the giant fuel companies and/or the motor car makers would be all over it?
Of course, Dr David Locke, Broquet and all the other proponents of this are lucky they haven't been "disappeared" by the giant petro-chemical companies to protect their profits.
I've found one fuel additive that actually works, but it's not for extra mileage, performance or anything like that, all it does is slowly clean the carbon off the backs of the valves and the piston crown / combustion chamber. It's made by Chevron and already in Texaco petrol. You can buy it in more concentrated form as Techron. There are others available too. Unlike the nebulous claims for other additives, Techron (or PEA) is actually provable.

The other great additive for fuel economy is a vacuum gauge.

 

[DAPPH]

No I don't think the fuel giants would want to hear of something that deprives them of income , same with governments . I suspect the big oil companies have indeed tested Broquet and found it did indeed work, but there is no way they can add it's advantages to their fuel .

I also looked at the actions of the actuaries , they calculate the odds of having to pay a claim . The fact that Mr Locke was able to get such a large amount of product cover means few or zero claims against him & his product .

Remember salt kills cut dandelions , but no one had coughed up the dosh for the tests to prove it as ther is no money in it for them .

Clean plugs & injectors as well as a really clean exhaust pipe is good enough evidence that it worked for me , so was the extra mpg in both our diesels & petrol engined cars .

Re the vacuum gauge ..
I used to have a big brass 15 inch or so dia vacuum gauge off a fire engine of some sorts . The graduations were almost 1/4 of an inch apart . So setting an engine at 17 to 21 inches mercury was very easy to get the optimum timing . Some git nicked it !

 

[Barking Mat]

I'm not going to start a new thread, at work we're trialing a version of the Webasto, Banggood, call it what you will, but the Russian version.

The Banggood heater is a copy of the Webasto, that I am certain of, the Russian one too, I've worked with Webastos for years. In short, they're great, until they don't work, then you strip them down, check the glow plug, flame detector, etc, etc. They can be rebuilt in an hour in the back of a van or side of the canal in an hour and back in service.

I mean they're identical, with the exception of the plastic box they come in.

I've not seen a Banggood one in the flesh, so I've a question for anyone with one, @owas , @doubleboost , and anyone else.

How is the plastic box it's in attached? Screws? This one, has poor quality plastic clips, two of four were broken upon unpacking, no visible damage to the box it came in. Here's some photos.

And how are you getting on with them ?