FE Power Forums
FE Power Forums => FE Technical Forum => Topic started by: fryedaddy on November 27, 2018, 03:30:45 PM
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i drive my 428 comet year round.in the winter i hate cranking it cold after sitting all night in freezing temps,also its slow to heat up. any suggestions on preheating the engine-oil-coolant etc before i crank it.do those dipstick oil heaters work etc.
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Here in Sweden we use a electrical heater often put in a
coreplug hole or a separate one that you connect with
hooses. Or there is heaters that heat the coolant and
heat the inside of the car running on fuel
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I use a heater that attaches in the lower radiator hose. Works really well.
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I've tried various methods to preheat diesel tractors so they would start down to single digits. My favorite method by far is a tank style heater (like a Zerostart 3305060) that draws cold coolant from the bottom of the block, heats it, and pushes into the top of the block. It recirculates the same coolant over and over and heats the block faster than any other method I've tried. Run this style of heater for 60-90 minutes and you'll actually have luke warm air from your vents the second you start your car.
My 2nd choice (because it's 2nd fastest) is to remove a casting plug from the side of the block and install a block heater. They're slower because their power is limited by their size.
To clarify after reading BigBlueIron's method. There are tank style heaters that tie into the heater hoses. I prefer the style that ties into the block drain plug and the heater hose that come out of the intake. This focuses all heating on the block.
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While not a currently an FE I plug whatever vehicle I'm driving that day in every night. Its just so much easier on everything plus use less fuel and I'm usually late for work already so I just fire it up and go. I also plug it in where ever I'm parked for more than a couple hours if available.
Skip the dipstick heater. The most efficient and economical is the type that replaces a freeze plug. Also more discreet if engine bay clutter is a concern, most have a detachable cord as well if you wanted to hide it even more. Second choice is the "tank style" which splices in your heater hoses. Third would be the in lower radiator hose. The only 3 options I would consider.
A magnet oil pan heater works too just not efficiently, although it does have the advantage to remove in the summer.
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I used to use a Kats recirculating engine heater in my '70 F100 many moons ago. It pulled from lower block and ran up to heater hose. Worked pretty well. I think it had a thermostat in it? If you plugged in warm, it didn't heat until it cooled off? Been too many years. I know it gave instant heat when you started the truck.
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Now I’m in the south and don’t really have this issue.
But....
I wouldn’t worry about water temps, I worry about oil temps.
So I’d get one of those magnetic bucket heaters and heat the oil pan.
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Here in not so cold Chicago, I use a stick-on Moroso oil pan heater. 24 years now and it's still going strong. Takes about 30 minutes in 35 deg. garage temps to get the oil (7 quart T-pan for my 351W engine) nice and toasty. Say 45 minutes when it's in the 20's. Great for late Fall starts and early Spring.
https://www.amazon.com/Moroso-23996-Adhesive-External-Heating/dp/B000CON16E
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Now I’m in the south and don’t really have this issue.
But....
I wouldn’t worry about water temps, I worry about oil temps.
So I’d get one of those magnetic bucket heaters and heat the oil pan.
Yep, oil gets cold enough it won't flow. It just kinda blops.
I honestly don't understand the physics of it but I tried 4 of the kat magnetic oil pan heaters on one of the tractors. They made no impact on starting. A 1000 watt tank style makes it start like summer time on a 5F winter day.
Take that FWIW, like I said I don't understand the physics and the oil pan heaters might be better for the motor. I just wanted the things to start.
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I don’t doubt that!
Here at work I fire the engines every three hours to keep the oil warm.
If the oils below 60 it’s like turning the crank through peanut butter.
Of course this oil is like 50wt
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The old VW bugs had a heater you put in in the sump
there was always a buildup like a anthill with cocksed oil
on them and when that let go in to the unfiltered oil system
there was instant engine failure
If you heat the block the oil get warm to. I know, i live where
it sometimes down to 40-45 below 0 celsius an engine would not
crank with oil that temperature
Thats when it is funny to come out in the morning, and find out a cat
have played with the cabel to the heater and pulled it out >:(. And you
have a tube tire that got flat beacuse the tubes leak below 30. And when you
pour alcohol in a coffe can and make a fire under the oilpan you see a strange
yellow light through the kitchen window you find out you had acetone
in the alcohol bottle. So the flames get to high and set fire to the fanbelts
So you have to drive to work without heating. To find out the workplace is closed
and they tried to call you but no answer beacuse you was out changing a tire or
putting out a fanbelt fire. DONT ask me how i know
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Be very safe with any heaters, my neighbor burnt down her house with the electric block heater type.
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One of my past careers was a CAT mechanic in Antarctica....I have some experience with coolant and oil heaters.
The 'cleanest' install would be the immersion heaters, or freeze plug heaters. If you can plug them in while the coolant is still warm they maintain the temps very well. If you plug them in to warm a very cold engine they take quite a while, depends on how big the engine is and the heater wattage. But they do work well, especially if you can put one on each side of the block. And the ones we used, either Katz or Zero Start, had removable cords.
I would NOT use any open-element type of oil heater, they burn and crystallize the oil, it turns to a big carboned-up mess and can't be good for the oil. It seems to heat only the oil touching the element and bake it to the element. Doubtful that a dipstick heater could A) have enough wattage to really work and B) safely heat the oil.
Most quality oil heaters are enclosed in their own tube so the oil doesn't directly contact the heating element. Again, if you plug in while the oil is warm it is easier to keep it warm, and the warmth will migrate up the crankcase to a certain extent. These also have a thermostat option and usually require welding a bung in the pan; so you thread the heater in one bung and thread the thermostat right beside it in another bung. Probably way too complicated for just a passenger car.
The external tank-type coolant heaters work well if you can get them plumbed very low on the engine for the draw and return the hot water up high so the movement of the water goes through the entire engine.
They make some really high wattage tank heaters for diesels and they work very well. It is best to use the thermostatically controlled ones, but that increases the size of the install. They work well if you have the room and the water ports for an install. Heating the engine coolant will also help warm the intake so the fuel atomizes and burns right away for less wash-down.
I've never used the magnetic pan heaters, but if you could use one in an area where the wind won't negate the heat from it, it might work to keep the oil a bit warmer.
Putting a magnetic heater on a pan out in the open would be less effective than one on a car in the garage.
The one other heater is a battery heater. There are blanket-types that wrap around the battery and pads that the battery sits on. It is my opinion that the pad-types work a bit better than the blankets because of the direct contact with the battery, and the heat rises up through the battery. The blanket theoretically will keep the battery in a warmer environment, but they also seemed to burn out quicker (just my experience).
Having a warmer battery makes for a faster spinning engine, which is a big help on a cold diesel.
Just some of my experiences.....we would have engine coolant heaters, battery heaters, and oil heaters for the engine, trans, and hydraulic tanks of the dozers and loaders
Bill
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When i was in the army i Drove the Hägglunds BV 206 bandwagon
they had battery heater. And we had a torch operated heater that
you plugged in with two hoses with quick conections with a hand
driven pump to cirkulate the water
Never had to use it though to the two big batteries with heater
it always cranked fast enough to start and was never colder than
30 deg celsius when i drove it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDFrybH-U1g
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Magnetic attached heater loses too much of it's heat to air.There are heating mat's that have greater contact area hence better effiency.
Hose heater with circulation pump will heat the oil too eventually.
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In the early 80is something i put a el-heater in the lower radiator hose on a 68 LTD with a 390" in it. Young and unpatience i just cut the hose installed the tube with the welded bung where it seamed to bee best to get it easily done and out of the way installation.
Just to find out that it boiled the radiator next morning ;D.
My installation was on the up wards sloop towards the radiator. A new hose and installation on the up wards sloop towards the water pump made it function perfect.
One do make a lot of surprising findings when you are young and eager to test tings and find results as quick as possible. Ha-Ha wonder what a book with Young unexperienced findings working on cars would have looked like. Perhaps could have been a Christmas special laughing fore old nut heads.
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Cool video Heo are you like a mountain man or something. Do you own that vehicle?
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Cool video Heo are you like a mountain man or something. Do you own that vehicle?
Not mine, its owned by a guy that collects Army vehicles but thats what i drove when i was in the Army early 80s.
BV 206,A real fun vehicle to drive. I think the US Marines have them now.
I just have a few Studebaker weasles T-24 and M29. No im not a mountain man,i think...live down by the coast
But i have to roam around in the forrest a lot to cut down and transport timber home
Was stationed up in the mountains in the Army though
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Back when I had my '70 F100 in the late 80's, I ran 50 wt motor oil. Arh, arh, arh. Thicker is better, right? LOL!! It was a hot rod, it had to have hot rod oil. Throw in the 85w-140 gear lube in the toploader and once you did get the motor started if you let the clutch out too fast, it would stall the engine. I had to kinda work it out and get the transmission moving then adjust the manual choke to keep the rpm up enough to stay running. With the Kat heater, at least keep the oil "warmer" and would turn over like it was much warmer then it actually was.
Ah, ya, to be young and dumb again. Luckily the only thing that has changed is the age portion....... :o
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Back when I had my '70 F100 in the late 80's, I ran 50 wt motor oil. Arh, arh, arh. Thicker is better, right? LOL!! It was a hot rod, it had to have hot rod oil. Throw in the 85w-140 gear lube in the toploader and once you did get the motor started if you let the clutch out too fast, it would stall the engine. I had to kinda work it out and get the transmission moving then adjust the manual choke to keep the rpm up enough to stay running. With the Kat heater, at least keep the oil "warmer" and would turn over like it was much warmer then it actually was.
Ah, ya, to be young and dumb again. Luckily the only thing that has changed is the age portion....... :o
Im familiar with that, you think you have it in gear because it jumps forward when you let up the cutch
And when you shift from first to second the car have stoped before you have managed to get it in second
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My grandfather had a 1947 ford pickup, flathead. I remember him going over to the milk house and getting a shovel full of hot coals from the boiler and setting them under the oil pan. He would do a couple chores, then comeback and the old Ford would start up, even at -30F. I used a lower hose heater, years later on my 70 F250. Both worked!
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thanks for all the great ideas.i think i will try the moroso pad.thanks everyone !
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This topic makes me smile and think of when I was young.
In 1980 I was employed at a Mercedes Benz dealer as an apprentice. One of my duty's was to perform pre-delivery inspections on new cars coming off of the transporters.
The dealership was in Pasadena, California, where on an extremely cold January night it might get down into the 40's.
In the glove box of every diesel car was a freeze plug looking "thingy" with a heating element and an electric cord attached to it. The first time I saw one I had no idea what it was. My mentor laughed and told me to pull it into my stall, drain the coolant into a clean container, pop out the easiest freeze plug to get to, install the block heater, and put the coolant back in. Then, roll up the cord and zip tie it securely somewhere out of the way...because it's never going to be unrolled.
Mercedes insisted we install them.
A few months later I went to Mercedes/Benz of North America training school. Next to me was a trainee from Fairbanks, Alaska. When talking about the block heater, he laughed. He said that they simply never turn the engine off...for months at a time. The cars also had a curtain dealer installed that you could work from the drivers seat that blocked air flow from the radiator.
Really!
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Back when I had my '70 F100 in the late 80's, I ran 50 wt motor oil. Arh, arh, arh. Thicker is better, right? LOL!! It was a hot rod, it had to have hot rod oil. Throw in the 85w-140 gear lube in the toploader and once you did get the motor started if you let the clutch out too fast, it would stall the engine. I had to kinda work it out and get the transmission moving then adjust the manual choke to keep the rpm up enough to stay running. With the Kat heater, at least keep the oil "warmer" and would turn over like it was much warmer then it actually was.
Ah, ya, to be young and dumb again. Luckily the only thing that has changed is the age portion....... :o
That sounds familiar. Back in Highschool (North-Central Minnesota) I drove a '68 IH Scout 800. 304 V8, T-18 4 speed, 4x4, etc. Good little truck for bombing around. Never found a ditch it couldn't drive back out of. Anyways, it sat outside all year, no block heater, nothing. Damn thing would always start right up, even at -30 F in the mornings before school. But that 4 speed would get so stiff in the cold, it would take a few miles of warm up time to get it to shift out of first gear. I got into the habit of backing it into it's parking spot so I could just drive away, because going from reverse to first with a cold trans was not going to happen. Probably did tons of damage to the trans, but it never failed me.
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Tommy-T thats why we dont buy Mercedes Diesels from a lumber jack
low milage but have been idling in the forrest every winter from November
to May ;D
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I tried several heaters when I lived in Omaha, Nebraska.
Oil pan heaters are inefficient. Much of the heat escapes off the pan (outside the pan is too exposed to any wind) and little heat gets to the oil at the crank.
I liked block heaters best, replacing a freeze plug.
Tank or inline heaters using the heater hoses worked OK but it took them longer to effect the engine cranking (oil temperature at the bearings).
Bob
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i dont have to worry with the wind.my comet is in a garage,but no heat in it.that oil pan heater might be ok with no wind blowing under the car
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"The cars also had a curtain dealer installed that you could work from the drivers seat that blocked air flow from the radiator."
Yea remember those in 50-60is cars here in Sweden, that's why i put well pap in front of my Audi 2.5 TDI last week. Darn 5 cyl iron block wont com up in temp before15-20 miles driving with out it.
Back then one had to know a lot of things to bee a Automobile driver, thees days people don't even bather to check engin oil, arent they supposed to check engin oil at services.
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On our trucks at work we used to run pan heaters and screw-in block heaters. I've found that the magnetic pan pads didn't work very well, but the glue on ones like the Zero-Start or Wolverine (I think Zero own Wolverine these days) worked a lot better. With the magnetic pads if the block heaters failed we'd still have to go out and ether the 2 strokes to get them to start, but with the glue on pads they would start by themselves (a little more cranking but they would start). Without any heaters, below about 35*F and the turbo'd 71 and 92 series wouldn't hardly start without melting the starter motors if you got them going at all (unless they were a low mileage fresh engine 200k miles or less).
Some of our off-road equipment had screw in immersion type oil heaters in the pan and no coolant heaters and they started just fine, but those heaters would keep the oil temp about 100*F. The pan pads, even the good ones weren't that good but they worked.
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I couldn't afford all that fancy stuff when I was young and poor. I would aim a kerosene jet heater under the front of the car in the morning for about a half hour. I just made sure it was sitting outside so that it didn't burn down the garage..lol
On the flatheads, with the less than ideal 6 volt system, my Dad used to go out and start his '48 truck every couple hours and let it run for a few minutes so he could get it started in the morning and make it to work.
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In the attached yet unheated garage, the Moroso stick-on pad isn't of course affected by the wind and works fine. Ambient in the garage is still pretty cold on 20 degree or colder days. Never used a magnetic pad.
Folks I contacted years ago said to skip these magnetic designs and go with a stick-on pad. I guess having both the pad and the lower radiator hose heater together would be even better if a tad of overkill. Either way, one must plan ahead for 30-40 minutes, depending on how hot one want's to get the engine, before starting.
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I couldn't afford all that fancy stuff when I was young and poor. I would aim a kerosene jet heater under the front of the car in the morning for about a half hour. I just made sure it was sitting outside so that it didn't burn down the garage..lol
On the flatheads, with the less than ideal 6 volt system, my Dad used to go out and start his '48 truck every couple hours and let it run for a few minutes so he could get it started in the morning and make it to work.
I used to do some side work on equipment for a ski area that's fairly close to me. First season I worked there (oddly they only had 1 full time maintenance guy DURING the ski season!) had a slide and they were all in a panic because they had no way to clear it. I asked what the big deal was - there is a D8 sitting behind the shop. Maintenance guy says, oh, that'll never start we only use it in the summer. So I dig it out, batteries are charged, cranked it a little and it was obvious this thing was TIRED. Built a little fire under the bellypan and in a couple hours I was out pushing snow like a mad man.
Not recommended, but hey, I got it going!
In the attached yet unheated garage, the Moroso stick-on pad isn't of course affected by the wind and works fine. Ambient in the garage is still pretty cold on 20 degree or colder days. Never used a magnetic pad.
Folks I contacted years ago said to skip these magnetic designs and go with a stick-on pad. I guess having both the pad and the lower radiator hose heater together would be even better if a tad of overkill. Either way, one must plan ahead for 30-40 minutes, depending on how hot one want's to get the engine, before starting.
On my personal stuff I have a 4 gang outlet box on the outside wall of the house in a spot I can easily get cords to anything I would normally want to drive in really chilly weather and the outlet box is on a timer so it turns on about 1.5 hours before my normal commute time. Also has an override so I can turn it on any time. I'm not so good planning ahead for stuff like that so automagic was good for me.
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That set up with a timer outside your garage port coupled to a core plug heater and a electric heater with a fan inside your car is extremely usual her in Sweden. In the northern parts its almost mandatory.
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When i built new porch and entrance to the house, i had four different electricians here.
everything was fine untill i told them i wanted an outlet on the porch that i could
switch on and off from inside with a light switch. That way i could plug in the car every
time i came home and switch on the heater when i knew i was to go somewhere.
Why? you dont use to do that, strange, nahh. I asked whats the problem why not?
cant the switch take the load? No problem realy, the switch can handle it...but you dont use to do it
Its possible but...nahhh you dont use to do that, why do you want that? there are timers...
Never saw any one of the electricians any more exept ocasional in some store in town when they hided
behind some shelfs ;D ;D. My strange request made me the fear of all electricians ;D
In the end i had to do it my self
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Ha strange how you have to do your electrician your self to get what you want.
I have a triple switch in my bathroom and the electrical professional worker was questioning way that would bee necessary. Becaus i want one switch fore the cabin light and one switch fore the spots in the roof and one switch fore the vent fan even if it has a hygro self starting sensor i want to bee able to switch it on for any reason i want my self.
Hade to do it my self and make a drawing to get it certified by the approved electrician pro.
"Good man manage him self " Swedish saying.
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Fortunatly my stepson is an electrician now. So atleast i dont have to do that
any more. He changed the mainfeed and moved the meter and the main fuses
He said, you are aware that we are not allowed to do this? I know and i dont care
Im tired of chasing grown men to do what they promissed to do.
It must be the previous owner that did this ;D Lets se when Vattenfall find out
the seal are broken on the meter ;D Seal whats that ??? i know nothing ???
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When i built new porch and entrance to the house, i had four different electricians here.
everything was fine untill i told them i wanted an outlet on the porch that i could
switch on and off from inside with a light switch. That way i could plug in the car every
time i came home and switch on the heater when i knew i was to go somewhere.
My grandparents when alive, lived in a condo complex for elders in Fargo, ND. 3rd level. Down in the parking lot was a short post with outlets about every other spot. Each individual apartment had a light switch and a small red light to show power was on in the utility room. This turned on a specific outlet.
Ive thought about how they wired that in such a massive condominium, still makes me curious!!