[Vwdiesel] block heater in freeze plug

[Harmon Seaver]

   What I used on my IH TD-9 crawler tractors and what a lot of loggers use is a
big propane torch (the kind people use for burning weeds, etc) or just the
burner out of a gas hot water heater, stuck in the end of a piece of 6" stove
pipe with an elbow on the other end directing the heat up against the skid plate
underneath the engine. You have to keep an eye on it, of course, less you get
all those diesel & oil soaked spruce needles that accumulate down between the
oilpan and the skidplate hot enough to ignite. 8-)
   It takes a lot of heat to get all that cast iron warm enough to crank. I know
a lot of other guys who have quick-couplers on the coolant hoses on both their
skidder or cat and on their pickups, so they can drive up to the machine and
hook the coolant lines from the pickup to the other engine and just sit there
until it's nice and warmed up. Takes awhile sometimes tho. But you're right
about the other stuff -- if it's 20 below, it's hardly worth it, pretty amazing
how easy things snap when you ram into a tree or a rock.




On Sat, Dec 21, 2002 at 11:13:18AM -0500, Lee Hillsgrove wrote:
> >Off topic here: any one here have a recommendation for a plug in heater
> >for my old 2 cylinder John Deere?  I'm thinking of picking up a dipstick
> >heater to warm it up for starting in Winter unless someone can recommend
> >a better system - John Deere 70 diesel with pony start if anyone's
> >interested... pmail so as not to disturb other listers here...
>
>
>
>
>  I'll reply to the list as the answer has merit here....
>
>  I would not go with a dipstick heater in any type of engine. They have way
> too much watt density, IMHO. The oil tends to burn to the heater, which not
> only does bad things for the oil but reduces the efficiency of the heater.
> Maybe with synthetic oil it would not be so bad, but I doubt you're using
> that in an old pony-start rig. I'd look at a coolant heater or a magnetic
> oil pan heater instead. The magnetic one would be ideal for a tractor, I
> should think.
>  I have a freeze plug heater in my '78 Ford 550 backhoe, which seems to work
> pretty well as long as you're not in a hurry. If it's cold enough that you
> have to use it, the hydraulics are going to complain mightily, anyway!  :-))
>  Hey, with a pony motor you can just keep on cranking and build up some heat
> eventually, right?  :-))  You could always fabricate some kind of a muff to
> go around the pony motor's exhaust to warm the diesel's intake air. That
> should work OK. I've been known to steal the wife's hairdryer to aid
> starting on a cold morning. Don't tell her, OK?
>
>   Lee
>   Oo-v-oO
>   PP-ASEL
>   KB1GNI
>
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--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com