Engine preheater hose connector?

[D6c10K]

Anyone ever have a coolant hose connector on dozer that allows you to preheat the engine by circulating coolant from a pickup to the dozer?
Didn't know how well it would work or if there are hose kits available.

 

[51kw]

I have seen it done with normal pioneer hydraulic couplers. Put couplers in the heater return line on the pickup. 2 hoses with couplers on each end and fittings on the dozer where ever you see fit.
In the am take couplers apart on truck, pull hoses from bed of truck, couple to dozer and climb back in truck to enjoy coffee for a bit. That is why you install in the heater return line otherwise you have no heat while waiting.
This can all be done with simple heater hose, pipe thread to hose barb connectors and 4 pairs of couplers. All available at any farm supply store. Remember to make the hoses plenty long so you dont have to have the pickup tight to the dozer. Also you will have to add enough antifreeze to fill hoses the first time they are hooked up.

 

[Dualie]

and remember to maintain both your dozer's and pickups coolant to the same standard

 

[D3DaveC]

Last fall I bought a propane heater at a yard sale used for keeping an engine warm all night. Same idea as above but instead of using your truck you plug this heater into your engine using pioneer fittings. You light the torch part and it's installed into the bottom of the heater which is shaped like a 5 gallon pail, this heats the coil inside and the hot water starts to circulate, thermo syphon. I'll try to get a pic of this thing when I get time. Was very popular with skidders.

 

[g_man]

A lot of loggers use the pickup to skidder heater hose connection described above. They call it the "Spit Swapping " method around here

 

[norite]

A lot of loggers use the pickup to skidder heater hose connection described above. They call it the "Spit Swapping " method around here

Very popular up here also

 

[EZ TRBO]

Used to do that alot with the crusher engine and dozer engines during winter. Worked very well...when the truck started blowing heat back on you, you knew the engine water was warmed up. Haven't used it for number of years though.

Trbo

 

[pf/l]

Personally I've always been leary of putting ice cold coolant back into a warm motor. Don't know how the gas motors are but the newer diesels are hard enough to get heat out of idling when it's cold let alone trying to warm up another motor.

We've used a couple of different methods in the bush over the years. Currently have a hot box heater hooked up to the skidder and Cat and possibly our new excavator(still on the fence yet)

Before that we used a hockey stick heater. Same pricipal but smaller scale and not portable.

Had a webasto heater on our loader but that crapped out after the first year and so far hasn't been made to work again.

Couple of pics that I uploaded from before of the hot box heater. Not sure if it'll work or not.

Ryan

 

[D3DaveC]

That's the same heater I was talking about that I have. I haven't tried it out yet but heard they work good.

 

[pf/l]

It works pretty good on the skidder. Half a hour to a hour at 0F and the engine is getting warm. Been looking at adding a circulating pump to it for the Cat though. Takes quite a bit longer to warm it up. Biggest thing with them is to make sure you don't have any drops in your hot line. Have to have a constant rise to get them to circulate properly.

Ryan

 

[watglen]

Where do you connect the hoses into the engine?

 

[watglen]

I asked my heavy equipment mechanic about this. They just use a piece of exhaust hose, well placed into the engine compartment for a half hour, exhaust from pickup truck gets the engine is warm as toast. Hook jumper cables up at the same time, and your can start in any condition.

I think I'm going to give it a try.

 

[pf/l]

Every motor is a bit different but genearlly one goes in the block and one near the top of the head.

watglen. I'll admit I'm skeptical that would work here. Maybe in a warmer klimate. Would need lots of insulation and cover I think for it do warm anything up around here. Let us know how it works though if you try it. Even just heating the intake air can make a world of difference on how something will start.

Ryan

 

[old-iron-habit]

Just helped my brother in law start a skidder, a tree shear, and a log loader with his pickup today. Poor fellow had a tree fall on him yesterday and is not going to be working for about 4 months so I moved his equipment home for him. We used a old Ford pickup for years heating logging equipment. It showed 280,000 miles plus who knows how many idling hours on that old six and it was still running when the truck rusted off around it. Temp did drop a lot when the water started to circulate. Not sure the new engines would hold up though. If you go this route remember that the head of the cold engine is always a little bit low due to condensing when cooling from running temperature. After a number of starts you will find the hot water doner will need to be topped off. I always start the machine before disconnecting the quick couplers and then disconnect the supply side first. The newly started engine will push a bit of coolant back refilling the vehicle used for starting. That seem to stay pretty even that way. Good luck.

 

[watglen]

Well Ryan, I would love to give it a try just for the hell of it really.

Problem is figuring out where to plumb the lines in.

I can't say I'm really familiar with engines. This tractor uses something called a dual pass radiator, which means the hot and cold lines both come off the bottom of the rad. There is a housing on the right side of the engine which has a pulley --- must be the water pump. Another housing may contain the thermostat above the pump. I found what I assume is one cab heat hose.

What i should do is post pics of the various fittings on the engine, maybe someone can say where the connections should be made.

I know enough that if I get it hooked up wrong, I will end up circulating hot fluid through the rad, or cab heat circuit, and the engine will stay cold. I want it hooked up so I know the hot fluid will circulate through the block and nowhere else.

I will get some pics posted....

Stay tuned,

Ken

 

[watglen]

OK, here we go.


This image show the right side of the engine. I think the large steel line is the hot coolant return line going to the rad. The rad ports are both on the bottom. The 1" rubber line is rises off the water pump to the top of the rad.




I think this is the thermostat housing. There is a large rubber line from the top of the water pump into the bottom of this housing. The heavy line off the top moves water to the hot side of the rad. I wonder if that plugged port on top would be of any use???



This is the water pump under the thermostat housing. You cant see the line connecting the two. The elbow feeds the 1"line going to the top of the rad, and a smaller valve and line which feeds hot water to the cab I'm guessing. Again, there is a port or two on the pump housing which may be useful.


another of the pump


the pump and lines again


So If i have this right, the pump pulls water from the bottom of the block, pushes out two lines. The smaller goes out the elbow, and either feeds the cab heat circuit, or goes to the top of the rad. A larger hose carries water off the pump into the bottom of the thermostat housing, where it is directed via the thermostat, either back into the top of the block or out to the rad.

If the unused port on the top of the thermostat housing was on the engine side of the circuit, I could push hot water in there. I could locate the cold side of the cab heat circuit, tee in, and return cold water out of the block to the pickup truck from there.

I need someone to confirm I have the flow right, and where those ports actually go.

 

[pf/l]

Sorry watglen I can't offer to much advice. Little hard to picture it without being there. I can say this though, if your going to use a truck or something of the like to circulate the coolant you may be able to hook into the heater lines and circulate the coolant that way. That's how we hooked up the webasto heater on our Volvo wheel loader. Worked excellent till the heater didn't work any more. Got two of the bloody things and neither will fire up when you want them too.

I'm looking at plumbing in a circulating pump into our propane fired heater that I posted pictures of to see if it will help heat up the engine faster. Got two of em on those webasto heaters that will likely never get used again.

Ryan

 

[old-iron-habit]

Put shutoff valves in the heater core lines and connect to the engine side of them with tee's and quick coupler. Just shut the valves while heating the block. I put the hot to the ottom of the block, my brother in law puts the hot to the top of the block. Both seem to work equally well. Takes about 15 minutes to heat a 4-53 from -20 to start without either.

 

[watglen]

The probably is the simplest old iron

I will have a look

Ken

 

[Bill Smith]

A good generator and a inline block heater seems to be a little less complicated to Me .