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In preparation for my upcoming winter truck camping adventures I purchased a diesel coolant heater and I'm just curious if anyone here has installed one of these units in their 6.0?
Unfortunately, you're exactly one day too late with your post. Yesterday, I finished this truck with a coolant filter, which unfortunately covers the heating hoses. Unfortunately, I can't take any better photos with my cell phone.
The installation is not difficult. After the heater control valve, the hose is cut off and routed to the diesel heater. From the diesel heater, it goes back to the other part of the cut-off hose that goes to the heater core.
You need a permanent positive voltage for the heater. The electrical connection is not very difficult. Once a certain coolant temperature is reached, the blower fan switches on and warms the interior and defrosts the icy windshield.
In my vehicles, I control the heaters via an app, but the receiver unit for the heater in the truck requires a SIM card. This allows me to start my heater from anywhere.
Unfortunately, you're exactly one day too late with your post. Yesterday, I finished this truck with a coolant filter, which unfortunately covers the heating hoses. Unfortunately, I can't take any better photos with my cell phone.
The installation is not difficult. After the heater control valve, the hose is cut off and routed to the diesel heater. From the diesel heater, it goes back to the other part of the cut-off hose that goes to the heater core.
You need a permanent positive voltage for the heater. The electrical connection is not very difficult. Once a certain coolant temperature is reached, the blower fan switches on and warms the interior and defrosts the icy windshield.
In my vehicles, I control the heaters via an app, but the receiver unit for the heater in the truck requires a SIM card. This allows me to start my heater from anywhere.
This is an older installation:
Pictures are super helpful and the routing sounds very simple actually so thank you for taking the time to post that.
"You need a permanent positive voltage for the heater. The electrical connection is not very difficult. Once a certain coolant temperature is reached, the blower fan switches on and warms the interior and defrosts the icy windshield."
^So......Star Trek level technology is required lol.
I was planning on just hooking it straight to one of the batteries and use the coolant heater's remote to turn it on/off and keep it simple, but if I can Star Trek it like you did with not too much hassle I'd for sure give it a good attempt ha ha
Is that a timer switch installed in the vehicle in the picture? That works too, of course. You can program the timer switch to start at a certain time or start the heating manually.
However, on days with severe frost, the doors are often frozen shut, making them difficult to open. That's why a remote control or app-based control makes sense.
I don’t typically see these installed in south central PA USA. How much draw on the battery do these units take? I’m much more concerned of frigid batteries and saving power for the hungry glow plugs and starter. Do you notice any battery draw down issue with this type of heater?
The batteries are less strained than when turning on the lights. In a 6.0, 20 minutes of running time is sufficient to heat the coolant to 60⁰C/140⁰F.
These heaters are very common in our country and are also installed in many smaller cars with smaller batteries.
Thanks to the preheated engine, the starter motor also requires significantly less power to start the engine, which naturally puts less strain on the batteries.
I don’t typically see these installed in south central PA USA. How much draw on the battery do these units take? I’m much more concerned of frigid batteries and saving power for the hungry glow plugs and starter. Do you notice any battery draw down issue with this type of heater?
These coolant heaters are no different from diesel bunk/parking heaters and both draw very little power overall. A typical 5kw unit will draw a 10ish amps for the first 2-3 minutes when starting and 2-3 minutes when shutting down as that's when the glow plug is powered, aside from that the power draw when running is anywhere between .25a-1.5a depending on the heat setting. I could run my 5kw bunk heater for almost 2 weeks straight off the 2 truck batteries lol.
Is that a timer switch installed in the vehicle in the picture? That works too, of course. You can program the timer switch to start at a certain time or start the heating manually.
However, on days with severe frost, the doors are often frozen shut, making them difficult to open. That's why a remote control or app-based control makes sense.
How do I go about installing an app based controller good Sir?
To my knowledge, there is no universal solution. The receiver modules are usually sold together with the diesel heaters, depending on the customer's preference.
These two components must be compatible with each other.
The app is free of charge. However, there is the additional cost of the SIM card.
To my knowledge, there is no universal solution. The receiver modules are usually sold together with the diesel heaters, depending on the customer's preference.
These two components must be compatible with each other.
The app is free of charge. However, there is the additional cost of the SIM card.
Do you typically run the fuel supply line to the vehicles fuel tank or do you setup a separate, smaller tank just for the heater?
I've though about running the fuel line for my diesel air heater to my truck's tank, but I'd have to remove the camper and lift the bed up and that's not something I want to do again so I have a 5 gallon tank in the rear storage box of my camper. I'm putting in a new air heater soon and now with the coolant heater arriving today I'm thinking it would be ideal to run both fuel lines to the truck's tank and I'm just wondering if I can just drill 2 small holes in the top of the tank, run the hard plastic fuel lines in and seal with gasket maker or something similar?
I have several of these metal pickup tubes, but not sure how I'd go about putting these in the tank?
