block heater

[jonny]

I had my mechanic put a block heater in my 89 jetta 1.6 NA. It was a style that replaced a freeze plug and has a cord to plug in off of the small heating element. He said it was hard to do with the engine in the car but with a lift not to bad. You may want to consider adding one. The 82 rabbit pickup I bought about 4 months ago the previous owner wired a Ford solenoid with a push button like the guys here descibe to engergize glow plugs - it works great and is relatively simple to set up/low cost. I can send you pictures of my set up if you like. I always test my glow plugs by using a car battery charger - I clamp the negative aligator clip arouind the threads, clamp the positive aligator clip where the wire goes and then plug it in. Some burned out glow plugs will register no current which I guess means they are completely broken - no heat at all. Other heat slowly or do not glow cherry red, good ones glow cherry red within about 5 seconds or less. I even check brand new ones because the glow plugs behind the injector pump are such a bugger to change. Never found a new one to be bad but just like to make sure.

Good luck,
Jonny

[Fatmobile]

I just installed a zerostat brand block heater in the bronze Rabbit.
Went in real easy, getting the old one out was a pain.

[Diesel Dean]

I put a block heater in my rabbit truck also. I jacked the truck up and got a long 3/8 ratchet extension snaked it up thru the bottom of the truck and placed the end of the extension in the middle of the center freeze plug. Then take a b.f.h. and pound on the extension until the plug tips out of the hole. Get a pair of vise grips and pull it out. Put block heater in hole tighten up and your good to go.

[TylerDurden]

Hose heater for me (in the bypass hose). Kat's 14400. Easy to install from the top.

[Fatmobile]

I put a block heater in my rabbit truck also. I jacked the truck up and got a long 3/8 ratchet extension snaked it up thru the bottom of the truck and placed the end of the extension in the middle of the center freeze plug. Then take a b.f.h. and pound on the extension until the plug tips out of the hole. Get a pair of vise grips and pull it out. Put block heater in hole tighten up and your good to go.

I'll add:
Clean up the hole with emery cloth
then use silicone dielectric compound to slick it up before install.

[bscutt]

In the midst of the east coast deep freeze my Kats in-hose heater (14400) and the timer have been working perfectly. We have had several nights at close to zero degrees but the Rabbit gets toasty when the heater kicks on at 4 AM giving me easy starts at 6 AM. Unfortunately I have no way to get electric/heat to it at work so the days where the high is 15 degrees it just has to stay home. Low compression in cylinder 3 makes it just embarrassing to start when it's that cold, filling the office building parking lot with smoke for a few minutes and just shaking the engine like crazy. But "normal" days it's tolerable and is serving me well. It's painful driving the F150 on those really cold days and watching the gas gauge drop by a gallon for my 13 mile drive each way.

[TylerDurden]

...Unfortunately I have no way to get electric/heat to it at work so the days where the high is 15 degrees it just has to stay home. Low compression in cylinder 3 makes it just embarrassing to start when it's that cold, filling the office building parking lot with smoke for a few minutes and just shaking the engine like crazy. ... It's painful driving the F150 on those really cold days and watching the gas gauge drop by a gallon for my 13 mile drive each way.

How about a spare battery and a 500W inverter?

[bscutt]

Yeah I thought about that. I have both of those (big deep cycle battery and a 1000 watt inverter) but would have to get outside around an hour or so before quitting time to turn it on or rig up a 12V timer. The way this season is going I might have to do that.

[TylerDurden]

I rekon a typical 120V timer plugged into the inverter should work.

[bscutt]

Well you got my engineer brain fired up so I just ordered a 12 volt timer ($11) and a 50 amp relay ($10) so I will run the 12 volt digital programmable timer off the regular battery, it will fire the 50 amp relay running off the deep cycle which will turn on power to the inverter and supply power to the hose heater via extension cord out the window (I have ventshades so precipitation is not a problem) to the power cord. Kinda ghetto but functional. Will have to recharge the deep cycle nightly so that could be a pain since my commute it not long enough to charge it back up off the alternator and I will put it in the foot well in the back seat anyway. If it doesn't work I'm not out much money and could probably use the parts for one of my solar panel setups. If it works I'll draw up a schematic and post it.

[TylerDurden]

Sounds pretty good.

I guessed ~75% efficiency for the inverter, so total draw might be ~500W. Running the system for 90min = 750Wh from a what... ~200AH battery?

The only downside I see is having a battery venting acidic vapors and damaging interior bits if it's in the cabin. Maybe the trunk/cargo area is less susceptible. (?)

[mtran]

I like this,220v 1-2 kw with washing mashine pump,best

[greg lousy]

Now that this has come up, my basic, freeze plug area block heater has conveniently failed this winter. Aside from crawling under there once for a basic inspection, unplug, cleaning, plug back in, I haven't really looked into it. I can get by down to near zero (which is about all I need in these parts) by giving the glow plugs about 25 seconds (manual bypass glowplug button) a little rest, about 10 more, then crank, but I sure don't love doing this everyday - nor do I love asking for a "spotter" on cold nights when I get out of work at 11:00 pm, just in case.

do these things often fail? Is there anything simple other than the main plug I could quickly check?

... I've also got injection line heaters hooked up (wvo conversion) I've been thinking about warming them up to see if it helps, but I'm not sure it'd be worth the battery drain (I think they'd take about two minutes drawing around 6 - 8 amps). Anyone ever mess with this?

[TylerDurden]

The plug-style heater failed on my vanagon, so I put in the hose-style (Zerostart).

The Kat's hose-heater I put in my 86 Jetta failed in a year, but it only took 45 min to replace including the fill/refill process.

I tested the failed heaters and the filaments were open, the thermal-switches were fine.

BTW, that fill/refill was easy, by siphoning out of the rez while applying a couple psi to the bleed hose... it needs to go a little slow, since the tstat is closed, but way better then getting under a sloppy/slushy engine, and it doesn't take much longer.


I don't think hot hardlines will help much. The cylinders/pistons are cold, so the compressed air at BTDC is barely hot enough to ignite the fuel.

[bscutt]

Never had an in block heater fail but all the cars I had with them didn't get the heater used much. But the in hose heater is easy to install and thus easy to replace and not very expensive so if I had your situation I'd probably just put in one of those.

TylerD, as for efficiencies I also guessed about 500W net draw and expect to only run it for an hour. As for venting I leave my windows down a bit (love the vent shades) just to dry out any moisture in the car so it would be ventilated. Not sure about the rating on the battery, it's a massive one my son gave me for a solar setup and it's brand new (haven't done the solar thing yet). SO I think I'll be ok on power, just need to rig up a way to charge it back up.