So for about a year now, since I bought red, my dad and I have been discussing a way in which to keep a diesel warm, at any time, without the need for a block heater, outlet, generator, or the like.

He told me a story about a buddy of his who drove a diesel pickup with a refrigerated cargo section in the back, which was always running, whether or not the truck was running. So the story goes that he had to spend the night in Silverthorne, a Colorado mountain town, last year when temperatures were plummeting below -40 F. Supposedly there was a diesel convention in town, and the next morning the town was littered with diesels that wouldn't start. His did, because those refrigerators kept his coolant circulating, and kept the truck warm.

His idea was to take some type of pilot, fueled by propane, or perhaps even fueled by diesel, which would keep the fuel system/coolant system in the truck warm, thereby eliminating the need for a block heater, and doing away with damaging cold starts. We haven't yet gotten around to creating a prototype, because we've been...busy.

So just yesterday I was talking with one of my colleagues, and he was telling me that a good friend of his had invented a fuel heating system, for both sparkers and diesels, that eliminated cold starts. I told him hey man, I gotta see this!

Here's the link. All you experts, what's your take on this?

http://www.blueheatinfo.com/

 

1,685 installed cost is a bit high for my bones.

 

I still want to know how it works. It has to have power from somewhere. The vehicle batteries?

 

Apparently, the batteries ignite a burner, because it's using fuel from your tank in addition to pulling a slight charge from your battery. Interesting concept, but too many unanswered questions with that kind of price tag.

 

I wonder why it has a section "how it works", and it dosent tell you. I says what it is supposed to do...They must be hiding something. I just got that it burns .1?gal/h on full blast.

 

We took a trip to Denali National Park this past summer. All the Bluebird buses had on-board hot water for making hot chocolate. When I asked the driver about this, he told me it was a side-feature of their keep-warm system that burns diesel as a block heater.

I think it was a Wabasto system.

Pop

 

Sounds like it could be the same product. I expect taht a Tour company would probably spring for something like that on their buses. It's still a LOT of money for a personal vehicle.

 

I haven't a clue where a Superduty owner would find the room to mount it, either.

Pop

 

I thought about something like this but then thought about those portable/briefcase size car starters like they use on car lots, and wondered if you could adapt one to be the power source for the block heater, then either 1) plug it in during the day to recharge or 2) hook it in to the truck's electrics to recharge while driving.

Obviously, there's limited battery capacity, but I may do some playing with the idea (i.e. spend a bunch of money on stuff i don't need...)

 

Side note, Pop... keep me posted on your graphics design work. I'd like to see what you come up with.


Please excuse my brief "off topic" interruption, guys.

 

The Ford dealerhip in Wheatland. WY sells and installs them. I do not know if it is the same one but the cost was way too high for me.

 

A buddy of mine just bought a coolant heater for his S-10 from JC Whitney. It ties into the coolant circuit and heats and circulates the coolant. He hasn't installed it yet so I don't know how well it works. It runs off of 110 volt though. Don't know what he paid for it.

 

At least their payback calculator is Honest. I would get full return on the instalation price in 639.8 months.

 

I hope that what they are really suggesting, then, is that their propduct will make the vehcle last for that full payback period... 53 years and 3.8 months would be quite a durability standard, wouldn't it??

 

I agree. I'd like to see one of these things installed before I could make up my mind about it.... an interesting concept, though. I wonder if it would allow the use of B100 bio all year round?