'Chinese' Diesel Heater

[mistericeman]

2 stroke expansion Chambers tuned to pulse resonance is a dark art to maximise scavenging ....

4 stroke exhaust getting more exhaust flow than induction volume.....

 

[Nabsim]

Yes it was 2 strokes I used to do it with. I once remember fitting reverse megaphones to a 2 stroke Yam om my mates insistence. The lack of performance had to be experienced to be believed lol Back in the early 80's it was hard to improve on Yamaha own pipes performance wise but 3rd party has the looks. Think it was a Micron I tried but swapped back to originals for performance.

 

[wildebus]

Chinese heater tuning .... Interesting. Can anyone make mine sound like a top-end Webasto GXR1200 ?

 

[Nabsim]

Ha ha Dave, well I can make them sound like a jet engine

I don’t think the cheapo Chinese silencers I have are bad at all. Interesting from the outside it looks almost identical to the Eberspacher item on the water heater under the front wing.

You don’t realise how much inlet noise there is until you silence the exhaust though do you lol

I have a ticking pump, not sure if it’s mounted on top of the fuel tank or somewhere inside the engine compartment. The ticking doesn’t bother me though I find it quite soothing.

our bed is at the opposite end of the van and can’t say I notice it if heating is on when in bed. It’s the heat I notice as It’s mounted in the space under the bed.

@StreetSleeper, can you let us know how the heater performs when connected to the original ducting please. When mine was fitted they ran a second lot of ducting but the original has a lot more outlets, the one I could be interested in is in the Han door footwell. Had door frozen a couple of times in real weather.

 

[StreetSleeper]

Over the last few days I've been slowly working away at getting this heater fitted. After routing the fuel pipe and the electric cable for the pump my next job was to fit the pump. I have heard you can eliminate the clicking noise by suspending the pump off cable ties, it seems feasible and here we have a picture of my attempt at achieving suspending the pump.

This was then glued and screwed to the outer casing of the gas locker.

Exhaust is now all fitted and the pipe comes out just in front of the rear wheel arch.

Air filter and silencer, you can see why I had to repair the floor; a dab of underseal won't go amiss.

Control panel fitted to wall, had to cut the centre out of the plug socket as the hole was too large.

All that is now left is to wire up the live and the negative, put some diesel in but, first of all, I shall read the manual.

Rae

 

[wildebus]

looking good

I don't think it mentions it in the manual, but I really do recommend priming the fuel pipe right up to the heater WITHOUT it being connected to the heater (and use the priming programme, not just prime by running the heater that most people tend to do)

 

[SquirrellCook]

I have heard you can eliminate the clicking noise by suspending the pump off cable ties

Did you read the bit about the resonate frequency of the cable tie at a particular length and thickness. Also they can be fine tuned with tension!.

 

[StreetSleeper]

Did you read the bit about the resonate frequency of the cable tie at a particular length and thickness. Also they can be fine tuned with tension!.

No, I'm afraid I didn't. When I was putting this together I was going to cross over the tie wraps so I made a figure eight, which I may still do just to see if it makes any difference. If still no good I will disconnect the ties and screw the rubber to the block and then choose which is the best option.

Rae

 

[StreetSleeper]

I don't think it mentions it in the manual, but I really do recommend priming the fuel pipe right up to the heater WITHOUT it being connected to the heater

Hello David,
What I intend to do is connect the pump to a battery and prime it with the end removed at the heater; I don't believe you can prime it any other way. I thought about pressurising the tank or using a syringe and pulling the diesel through but I think the pump will not allow any fuel to bypass.

Rae

 

[mistericeman]

Hello David,
What I intend to do is connect the pump to a battery and prime it with the end removed at the heater; I don't believe you can prime it any other way. I thought about pressurising the tank or using a syringe and pulling the diesel through but I think the pump will not allow any fuel to bypass.

Rae

Use the syringe to pull it through to the pump and then push it through from the other side of the pump to the heater...

Saves a heap of messing as it'll usually prime itself after that.

 

[StreetSleeper]

Use the syringe to pull it through to the pump and then push it through from the other side of the pump to the heater...

Saves a heap of messing as it'll usually prime itself after that.

Thank you very much for that information. I have a syringe that should do the job.

Rae

 

[wildebus]

Hello David,
What I intend to do is connect the pump to a battery and prime it with the end removed at the heater; I don't believe you can prime it any other way. I thought about pressurising the tank or using a syringe and pulling the diesel through but I think the pump will not allow any fuel to bypass.

Rae

That will be a very boring process. you will have to be tapping the power on and off for each pump pulse. If you just leave the +ve on, then you get the one pulse I am sure.

There IS a way to prime the fuel line from the control panel. I'll look it up and post it (I think you have the LCD display, yes?)

 

[wildebus]

This guy describes it and films it ....

 

[RAW]

normal Diesel

Just as a Note, having recently done my CPC I asked instructors the direct question.
"Can I use Red Diesel in my Diesel Heater ?"
The answer was:
"As long as you can prove that your heater fuel tank is completely separate from your engine's fuel tank then it is fine"
So reduce costs and run Red Diesel in Your Diesel heaters !

 

[wildebus]

Just as a Note, having recently done my CPC I asked instructors the direct question.
"Can I use Red Diesel in my Diesel Heater ?"
The answer was:
"As long as you can prove that your heater fuel tank is completely separate from your engine's fuel tank then it is fine"
So reduce costs and run Red Diesel in Your Diesel heaters !

Kerosene.


Much better - and cheaper than Red

 

[Nabsim]

For me I don’t think it’s worth using anything but road fuel, I already carry a can of petrol for the genny so red or kerosene would be something else to carry.
Saying that if I was fitting one now I probably wouldn’t break into the fuel tank so don’t know

 

[wildebus]

For me I don’t think it’s worth using anything but road fuel, I already carry a can of petrol for the genny so red or kerosene would be something else to carry.
Saying that if I was fitting one now I probably wouldn’t break into the fuel tank so don’t know

If you were to install a diesel heater in your van, getting fuel to it from the diesel tank would be very easy. You already have a engine pre-heater which is fed from it and you can make a nice and simple Tee off it. Works well and is much easier than either a dedicated fuel tank or a standpipe into the tank.
(Teeing off from the Pre-heater supply is how I have done 2 VW T5s and both still worked afterwards )

On my LT, if I were to have fed off the tank, not only would I have had to drop the tank to fit a standpipe but I would have had to remove the pull-out step by the sliding door, as the framework for that was around the tank! Too much hassle by far and I do like burning a cleaner fuel anyway in the heater.

 

[SquirrellCook]

I have had to drop the tank to fit a standpipe

Though still needing to drop the tank to find it, many van and truck tanks have an extra pick up tube.

 

[RAW]

Kerosene.

Never used Kerosene and not sure where I could get it, maybe a place near to me in Mytholmroyd, but would need to check.
Seems to be only 28p per litre !!

 

[StreetSleeper]

This guy describes it and films it ....

Thank you David for putting that link up, I followed the instructions and it worked a treat. I, also, did what you suggested when turning the heater off; cannot believe the heat and how quiet the heater is........inside..........outside is a different matter, cannot hear the inlet but can hear the exhaust. Also from the outside you can hear the fuel pump; non of these noises are noticeable in the van so providing I don't park next to anybody I can't foresee a problem.

Rae