Coolant Heating and Circulation

[rl71459]

Recently I came up with an idea that I'm testing... So Far it works pretty good.

During the winter I always park my car MBZ 190d in the garage, block heater plugged into a timer for the morning trip to work, She starts real nice even in the very cold mornings we get here. When I get to work
She sits outside chillin! It never has failed to start, but will definetly be a little grumpy for a bit.

Sooo, I tryed putting my boat battery (Deep Cycle) in a case, in the trunk, connected to my "Coleman" 2000 watt inverter and strung an extention cord to the block heater. during the day I turn it on every  other hour or so for 15~30 minute periods (I have ordered a timer to automate it) So Far she likes it!

@ night I have been connecting my 2 amp automatic charger to the batt. So far it's always ready in the morning when I leave for work @ 6:00am.

I was thinking of Pulsing the Aux (Heater) Electric Water Pump every so often to move water around in the system to more evenly warm the engine. I dont know if this will work or not. I know others on the forum have some of these older benz's. Does anyone know if this will actually work? or will it just move water thru the heater core?

Rob

[Ronmar]

Interesting.  How many watts is your block heater?  As for moving the heat around, the goal here is to have a clean cold engine start right?  Well any heat you move around is going to warm something other than the engine block.  It is also going to increase your surface area to loose heat from.  Since you have a limited energy supply, I would say leave the fluid as static as possible to keep as much in the engine as you can.  I also think that heating it during the whole day may also be a little wastefull as it just bleeds down the battery keeping an engine warm that isn't going to be started for hours.  I would say save the power for a good pre-heat cycle before quitting time... 

1000W out of a 12V battery is going to be 83A, plus the conversion losses from the inverter, say 15% maybe?  That is a good drain on a 12V battery...   

[Wizard]

Have you found out how much watts in that engine heater?

Engine heaters operates on thermosiphon, no need for pump.

Not all consumer inverters is kinda iffy to handle thermal heaters IIRC.  And have you measured battery in current draw?  Some is not made for this heavy currents that long.

Have others chime in with correct type of battery?

Cheers, Wizard

[rl71459]

Thanks guys

The block heater is 500 watts. I dont have a way to measure batt amp draw. I have used it 3 days so far.
I plan to set it up to wait for the block to cool down before the timing intervals begin. I think it will amount to a max of about 2 hours total on time. The battery charger looks like it is recovering quickly watching the meter.

I will drop the pump idea.

Rob

[slowspeed]

just put line heaters on my injecton lines today
the heaters are for heating the wvo befor it gets to the injector
could you use line heaters toget the car to start  easy?

Cold diesel engines start with glow plugs

[Geno]

500 watts at 12 volts is 41 amps plus inverter losses. You could run the block heater for 2 hours before you leave work and check battery voltage when you get home. That would tell you if you're draining the battery down too much. I don't think the circ pump will help. An IR thermometer would help you to see how long it takes to get the engine warm with the block heater. I'd bet a breeze in the parking lot would take away a lot of heat. I've heard of people putting a blanket over the engine to help keep the heat in.

Thanks, Geno

[cgwymp]

To follow up on Geno's post -- watts = volts x amps.  Or rearranged, amps = watts/volts

HTH!

[BioHazard]

Funny you brought this up, I was just thinking about an onboard pre-heating system for my truck. I would think you would be much better off just setting the heater to come on for an hour or two before you leave work, no reason it needs to stay warm all day. (unless maybe you want it warm for unexpected trips?)

Sounds like you're draining that battery pretty close to dead every day, don't expect it to last very long at that pace.

Sure there's nowhere to plug in an extension cord at work? 

[slowspeed]

on my 300sd benz I turn key to Acc. or first position and the line heaters come on.
if its cold out (today 45 Deg. in the Morn)I leave the heaters on for 45  sec. or so
Then turn key to next place .That gives power to the glow plugs and line heaters
The line heaters can be left on or turn off with switch
on all the time seems to work fine

Jeff
AZ