Well after my truck had a hard time starting tonight I was wondering about a heater that you wouldn't have to plug into an outlet. Our cranes at work have a system that draws power from the batteries and warmed the antifreeze up for easier starting. I was wondering if they made something smaller for pickup sized vehicles. Anyone know of a brand and cost if such a thing was out on the market?

 

More than likely, what you have at work are oil pan heaters. I saw that done on a construction 2 stroke engine once on a construction site.

I do have experience doing this, I had a chevy way back when, and had 4 100ah deep cycle batteries in the tool box, and a big inverter, to plug the block heater in.

Heaters take a massive amount of power, so I advise strongly against using your starting batteries.

There is also a diesel burning system to heat the engine up. Depending on what you want/ expect, that might be an option.

 

After talking to the mechanics at work, they gave me the low down on it. It is a diesel unit, pretty neat idea but expensive as heck.

 

Yes, webasto heaters are more common on the heavy highway trucks. They can heat the motor, heat the cab and sleeper. Key is a BIG fuel tank and lots of batteries isolated from the main start batteries. Some of them even have cooling as well for the cab.

 

Wabasto heaters work great. Had them on our bucket trucks and on our Kabota diesel auxiliary packs. Depending on your situation there are also auto start systems which can be programmed to start the engine and allow it to run for a preset amount of time IE: start every four hours and run for 20 minutes then shut down and repeat every four hours or whatever you set it at. A buddy of mine has one on his Duramax and uses it when we go ice fishing and sledding. Works very well. I take my generator and use it to run my block heater when needed.

 

I would steer away from doing that, just because idling is hard for diesel engines.

20 minutes will get it just a touch warmed up.

100 degrees if your lucky when it's cold out.

 

He's got it set to idle up after two minutes and has a cold weather front. He's had it installed about six years now and no ill effects yet related to it.

 

if your truck is having issues starting fix those first. consider going to a thinner oil for winter. instead of trying to patch over the real issue with an external heater

 

Going to install (2) 250 watt 12volt (about 21 amps each) heating pads on the oil pan. The 6.0L wiring has been upgraded and a 250 amp alternator has been installed. They will be separately turned on by (2) 25 amp fused relays controlled from the cab threw an ignition on power source.

After the glow plugs have turned off (have an ammeter in cab) than switching on the heaters would not be a problem for the alternator. The reason for this add on is I drive short distances (10 mi) and the temp gets to 180 deg as I pull in the driveway. This is probably hard on the diesel and would like to give it more of a chance to heat up. I do plug it into a 120v source when available, but from a parking lot not much of a chance.

I'll post up if your interested on parts and the install.... And the benefits.

Dave

 

Sounds like a cool idea in theory; but not enough heat.

Could you re-purpose the EGR cooler solely for adding exhuast heat to the coolant? (I thought of doing it)

Unless you can pump 4000-10,000 watts of heat into it, I doubt you'll notice any difference.