stevo-mt
Member
I started dismantling the old diesel air heater. To replace it with a new espar air heater. 
I removed the old air heater and will install the new espar in the same area. It will provide a good spot to have the air intake and the heated air outlet in the places where the old vent and control panel were.
I installed the auxiliary fuel tank with the two standpipes for the espar heaters installed. The auxillary tank will be primarily for fuel for the heaters, but the sending unit is plumbed to a 12v pump that will transfer fuel into the other tank if desired. I plan on keeping #1 or 50/50 fuel in it during the winter, I need to do some more research which fuel works best for the espars. I had to cap the extra two ports on the fuel sending unit so I decided to leave a couple feet of 5/16" hose that was on the sending unit as a spare in case I get a third tank and need to plumb it in. I also will keep the spare fuel pump I took out on board just in case. You will burn up your injector pump real quick if you don't have at least 5-10 psi on your fuel going to it. Plus it keeps all of the electrical fuel pumps the same in case one burns up on me.
While I was in the business of doing fuel lines and such I also ran the filler pipe. It didn't turn out quite like I expected it to so I will have to machine a plastic trim piece to square up the filler flange. It was an angled filler neck flange, for a boat of course, but the angle was too great to line up with fuel tank. It is still a better option than cutting more into the box and mirroring the drivers side.
I also installed a new 12v fuel pump for the lift pump to the engines injector pump. The previous owner had already replaced the mechanical lift pump with one, but I wanted to clean up some of the crazy plumbing that the military had. They routed the fuel lines around the engine which would be good for pre heating the fuel, good idea, but just in the way. My coolant lines that run to the rear espar heater will help pre-heat the fuel probably better than their setup. I also installed the new racor fuel filter with a 200w 12v heater. The truck has all new fuel injector grade fuel lines and is running great! My crankshaft pully was wobbling a little worse than what I remembered when I first purchased it so I replaced the harmonic balancer. That was a chronic problem with the 6.2l diesels from everything I've read. So hopefully I don't end up on the side of the road with a busted crankshaft! I rechecked my glow plugs also and 4 of the dang things were burned out! So I have some new AC delco 60G's on order and I will just replace them all.
The coolant heater install is taking much longer than I expected. I had to build a manifold to isolate the coolant hose lines that run to the espar coolant heater in the rear. The heater was required to be within 6 ft from the fuel source so I had to relocate it back further on the truck. I ended up mounting the heater on the aluminum camper next to the fuel tank in front of the passenger side rear wheel.
I installed the rear heat exchanger so the coolant heater will also be able to heat the rear cab. It is a 5kW heater vs the air heater being a 2kW so between the two I should be able to keep that truck cooking in the super cold weather! I just ran the hoses into the heat exchanger and will have to mount it once the batteries in the rear are installed. I will also be able to power the trucks cab heater and preheat the truck as well. The window will be defrosted bright and early for me!
I need to do a little modification to the plumbing with the coolant heater to bypass the heater when the truck is running, the coolant heater is inline with the cab's heating system and it isn't allowing enough coolant through to heat the heater core. So when I do that I will make easy to plumb in a heat exchanger for heating water. I did get one that you would have on a boat, but it is gigantic. For whatever reason it seemed like it would be smaller! It is a 6 gallon seward heater than can also be powered by 120Vac. The turtle expedition truck used to have one and they removed it because of its size and downfalls. They were not able to get the water out of it when they emptied the other tank, essentially leaving them with 6 gallons of heated water you can't use. I figured out how to utilize it as a storage tank and empty all the water out of it, so that would not be an issue anymore. The problem is is just size, it's huge! I should have just though of how big a 5 or 6 gallon bucket is and that would have given me more of an idea. So I guess we will see how that works out. The turtle ex. truck replaced it with a simple heat exhanger that worked quite well and a lot smaller and lighter.
There has been a lot of bouncing around the truck through the week and hopefully I can get it halfway together before I take off for the northwest and Moab!
To do list for the week:
Skid plate for fuel tank
Finish plumbing coolant lines for espar heater
build a cover for the bottom of espar heater to keep mud out
finish mounting air heater
install rear batteries
install rear battery isolater solenoid
tie auxiliary fuel pump into truck console
install a fuel guage for the aux tank
make some mud flaps
wire in the air heaters.
It's going to get crazy!
I removed the old air heater and will install the new espar in the same area. It will provide a good spot to have the air intake and the heated air outlet in the places where the old vent and control panel were.
I installed the auxiliary fuel tank with the two standpipes for the espar heaters installed. The auxillary tank will be primarily for fuel for the heaters, but the sending unit is plumbed to a 12v pump that will transfer fuel into the other tank if desired. I plan on keeping #1 or 50/50 fuel in it during the winter, I need to do some more research which fuel works best for the espars. I had to cap the extra two ports on the fuel sending unit so I decided to leave a couple feet of 5/16" hose that was on the sending unit as a spare in case I get a third tank and need to plumb it in. I also will keep the spare fuel pump I took out on board just in case. You will burn up your injector pump real quick if you don't have at least 5-10 psi on your fuel going to it. Plus it keeps all of the electrical fuel pumps the same in case one burns up on me.
While I was in the business of doing fuel lines and such I also ran the filler pipe. It didn't turn out quite like I expected it to so I will have to machine a plastic trim piece to square up the filler flange. It was an angled filler neck flange, for a boat of course, but the angle was too great to line up with fuel tank. It is still a better option than cutting more into the box and mirroring the drivers side.
I also installed a new 12v fuel pump for the lift pump to the engines injector pump. The previous owner had already replaced the mechanical lift pump with one, but I wanted to clean up some of the crazy plumbing that the military had. They routed the fuel lines around the engine which would be good for pre heating the fuel, good idea, but just in the way. My coolant lines that run to the rear espar heater will help pre-heat the fuel probably better than their setup. I also installed the new racor fuel filter with a 200w 12v heater. The truck has all new fuel injector grade fuel lines and is running great! My crankshaft pully was wobbling a little worse than what I remembered when I first purchased it so I replaced the harmonic balancer. That was a chronic problem with the 6.2l diesels from everything I've read. So hopefully I don't end up on the side of the road with a busted crankshaft! I rechecked my glow plugs also and 4 of the dang things were burned out! So I have some new AC delco 60G's on order and I will just replace them all.
The coolant heater install is taking much longer than I expected. I had to build a manifold to isolate the coolant hose lines that run to the espar coolant heater in the rear. The heater was required to be within 6 ft from the fuel source so I had to relocate it back further on the truck. I ended up mounting the heater on the aluminum camper next to the fuel tank in front of the passenger side rear wheel.
I installed the rear heat exchanger so the coolant heater will also be able to heat the rear cab. It is a 5kW heater vs the air heater being a 2kW so between the two I should be able to keep that truck cooking in the super cold weather! I just ran the hoses into the heat exchanger and will have to mount it once the batteries in the rear are installed. I will also be able to power the trucks cab heater and preheat the truck as well. The window will be defrosted bright and early for me!
I need to do a little modification to the plumbing with the coolant heater to bypass the heater when the truck is running, the coolant heater is inline with the cab's heating system and it isn't allowing enough coolant through to heat the heater core. So when I do that I will make easy to plumb in a heat exchanger for heating water. I did get one that you would have on a boat, but it is gigantic. For whatever reason it seemed like it would be smaller! It is a 6 gallon seward heater than can also be powered by 120Vac. The turtle expedition truck used to have one and they removed it because of its size and downfalls. They were not able to get the water out of it when they emptied the other tank, essentially leaving them with 6 gallons of heated water you can't use. I figured out how to utilize it as a storage tank and empty all the water out of it, so that would not be an issue anymore. The problem is is just size, it's huge! I should have just though of how big a 5 or 6 gallon bucket is and that would have given me more of an idea. So I guess we will see how that works out. The turtle ex. truck replaced it with a simple heat exhanger that worked quite well and a lot smaller and lighter.
There has been a lot of bouncing around the truck through the week and hopefully I can get it halfway together before I take off for the northwest and Moab!
To do list for the week:
Skid plate for fuel tank
Finish plumbing coolant lines for espar heater
build a cover for the bottom of espar heater to keep mud out
finish mounting air heater
install rear batteries
install rear battery isolater solenoid
tie auxiliary fuel pump into truck console
install a fuel guage for the aux tank
make some mud flaps
wire in the air heaters.
It's going to get crazy!
