I'm thinking of adding an engine block heater to my X. I figure that I would save in mpg by not having to "warm it up" in the morning, plus less wear on the engine during cold starts, and of course the biggest benefit is the females in the house will get to hop in to a nice warm truck in thE mornings.

Anyhow, I did a little google'ing and can;t seem to find them anywhere. I knoW I can get one fromt he ford dealership, but I always like to look at after markets first (for price and quaility comparision) - so does anyone know where I can find one?

Thanks,
Mark

'01 Excursion, Limited, 4x4, V10

 

checkerauto.com

 

JC Whintey, Summit, Jeggs, and most any other mail order house including Advance Auto and Napa or other locals can order it.

I use mine every day the WX man says the over night temp is going to be below 45F

Warm air before the end of the driveway is a good thing... and I too, believe it is easier on the motor internals....

 

Do you plug it in all night or just in the morning?

Do you use the block heater or the radiator heater?

After doing some additional serching, Im trying to decide if the engine block heater would be worth the trouble. I found one person that said you just about have to pull the engine to get to the freeze plug that the heater "should" go in to - driver's side, front of the block.

So I'm kind of back stepping and considering getting one of the radiator heaters that goes in the bottom radiator hose. Or what about one of the "magnetic" oil pan heaters? They seem awful expensive though.

 

MarkMoore

My last ten trucks all had the factory heater

Are you sure your 01 does not already have one? Many regional (Northern states) get the block heater by default as standard equipment..... the electric plug is hard to find.

I would opt for the block heater. Both sides of the V10 have pretty good access to at least one of the large water jacket freeze plugs... I would NOT push the plug in... they disrupt water flow too much.

Here in a couple of more weeks I will start plugging in every evening when I shut off the truck coming home from work...90% of the time if we go out we use the cars... I have been doing this for decades the electricity cost are not noticeable on my bills....and there is zero ill effect on the heater or motor.

 

I'm in the southeast (NC) and bought the truck from a dealership in Columbia, SC - so i doubt it would be standard (although it could have been ordered with one).

Where would I find the plug (or begin looking) - I recently did the DooDad mod and took the griil out and didn't see anything (but then again I wasn't really looking for it either).

 

My 01 was hidden on the drivers side and my current 05 is hidden on the pass side and I never have found where it ends up on the block

It is a standard three prong plug with an safety water cover that goes over the blades and ground pin... one of mine was completely tape up and real hard to find

The stuff it down at bumper level and once found usually snakes out one of the two tow hook areas. One was tucked away between the tin sheet metal and the hard chromed bumper inside...care full I cut the hell out of my palm on sharp sheet metal edges fussing around trying to find the 01's.

not sure if the Vin or any code on the truck would indicate if or if not... I am sure it is listed on the window sticker most of the time even if standard item.

 

Found mine between the pass side lower headlight and bumper.Ordered mine with the truck,cost $35.

 

That is one item I order with every truck. While I don't plug it in every day when it gets cold, it is sure useful when the temp gets closer to zero or colder! (I still have to find it in this one.)

 

I looked today - but I haven't found one. It would be really cool if there was one already installed. I'll search some more this weekend - I feel pretty confident that it's not there, but the more I read, the more I hear everyone saying "it was real hard to find", so I could be over looking it.

Thanks to everyone for thier input.

 

This probably means you can stop looking.... I went and looked it up:

Code 41H option Engine Block Heater (Standard in AK, CO, IA, ME, MN, MT, ND, SD, WI, WY)
--------------------------------
Here is a great resource for the different model years "dealer order guides back to 2002

http://www.sunrisefordfleet.com/download_center.htm

 

Ok well - I should have known.

I guess I'll start looking for either a block heater or radiator heater (probably the latter for ease of installation).

Thanks Fredvon4

 

With the engine block heater do you keep it pluged in all night or just a couple hours in the morning?
I have an 05 V10 with factory installed block heater.

 

Gage2502

I leave mine on from 1645~1530 (4:45Pm to 5:30 Pm) when I get home from work, until 0630~0700 AM the next morning. This has been my habit for over 25 years in the winter and never have had a unit crap out as long as there is oil or water where the unit is designed to work. I had a self installed heater hose version on an older Nissan "in line 6" one time that burned up from a air bubble in that line.

I am a big fan of the very simple block heaters in the water jacket that have no moving parts and only raise the temp to the 95F~110F range. There are exactly like a typical hot water heater element and rarely go bad.

When I lived in Alaska and later in Minnesota I had separate battery heater and Trany oil heater... These too got the all night long use. Then again I was seeing -10~-45F many nights. No garage big enough for the F350, so I also draped a "moving and storage" furniture blanket over the hood and down in front of the radiator to keep wind off the radiator core. Most of the time I put another cover of a cheap 10'x10' plastic tarp on top of the blanket so the snow would not stick. In the morning I just pulled the snow and tarp/ blanket forward and let it slide to the ground. Shook it off and hung in the garage for the next night use. Never put the tarp directly on the paint.. Ice and snow weigh it down and removing it will be impossible if any moisture froze the damned tarp to the hood.... I know this the hard way!

The cheap furniture blanket holds the very small amount of block heater heat in, and also acts as an insulator to prevent the snow on top of the tarp from melting. I buy a set of four of these movers blankets from Harbor freight ever couple of years for about $7.99~$9.99. and always keep one in the truck for in the snow or mud on my back use. Cheap...decent quality, soft, and a great cushion barrier for your elbows, ribs, and hips when changing the plugs...money well spent!

Down here in Central Texas the lower temps never get much below 20F so I have toyed with the idea of a timer on the extension cord to just come "on" a couple of hours before dawn... OTOH, our electricity is fairly inexpensive down here. I can not detect any appreciable load on the bill every month. So I am not highly motivated to save half a kilowatt hour +/- per month on the timer

 

I have the block heater as a factory installed option on my '06 V-10 E-350 and as with the others, they plug was not easily visible at first glance. Mine came from a dealer in NJ, but they order them for folks who could be anywhere on the continent, I guess. I have not used mine yet.

My experience with block heaters of my own are that they can be costly to run, but that depends on the wattage of the element. I believe the one I had about twenty years ago was a 1,500 watt element. It was on a 3208 Cat Diesel, so it may have been much larger than the ones we are using now. I figured it cost me about a dollar a day back then. I didn't invest in a heavy-duty timer, but would have the cord all set up and ready to plug in. Then when I got up, the first thing I'd do was plug in the block heater, then the morning routine. And 50-90 minutes later it usually would be warm enough to start. When temps were below twenty, I'd leave it plugged in all night.

I did install one of those radiator hose in-line heaters for a relative on a hard winter-starting car(I think it was a '68 Fiat). The installation was fairly straightforward. The biggest problem was cutting that darned spring-hardened wire in the hose.

The instructions called for placement as low as possible on the lower "cool-water" hose, in the vertical portion to help natural circulation. That should alleviate any air bubble problems. The thermostat should open and not allow any overheating/boiling concerns. Excess heat should be wasted through the radiator naturally. It worked well as far as I know, but I wasn't around the car after the relative returned to his home.

The factory type seems to be the preferred placement...the heat is closer to where you need it. But if the freeze plug is not accessible, well, would you really want to tear it half apart to install one? If the in-line heater doesn't work you can always replace the lower hose and go back to square one.

Seems to me that any heater in the water stream would not help the cold oil situation, but with the low temp. multi-viscosity oils we now use they should flow well enough to allow early lubrication. Still, I would always remember, only the top half of your engine is warm and the oil would have to have some time before it circulated enough to flow through the engine and be warmed too. With this in mind, I wouldn't leave my driveway and climb a big hill at more than half throttle. I have a quite steep, half mile long hill just a hundred feet from my driveway. When leaving home that way when it's cold, I always go easy, reaching 30-35 by the time I crest the hill. Seems to have worked for me...no engine problems in any vehicle that didn't already have a problem when I got it.