Your last generator Maintenance Run

[3930dave]

For me the inline coolant heaters is far superior to the freeze plug heaters which I was lucky if I got 2 years...

Good to know...... What brand inline do you use ur ?

I'm used to replacing the traditional immersion ones on big trucks, eventually (10+ Winters), but your application is different...... running 24x7x365 IIRC.....

Rgds, D.

 

[Rustyiron]

Is it in a generator shed, or just roofed-over ?

Rgds, D.

I built a little 9x10 building for it.



Chilliwack (love that name)
here's the heater.

 

[Rustyiron]

On standby units they aren’t for starting as much as to keep the engine warm enough to go straight to 1800RPM and immediately accept 100% block load. Depending on the application they are required to do this in either 10 or 15 seconds of a power loss. Just like starting your car and immediately putting your foot to the floor and keeping it there. It only takes a handful of starts like that before the rings grab a liner and it comes outside to visit.

I'd love to have a throttle control or at least an idle position, but yes this is immediately right up against the governed rpm and I'm definitely a warmer upper kinda guy.

 

[ultrarunner]

I built a little 9x10 building for it.

View attachment 677353 View attachment 677354 View attachment 677355

Chilliwack (love that name)
here's the heater.
View attachment 677359

Where I come from we call that a Power House

 

[Industrial Toys]

I would love that too. Like Governors of America. Also a better way to regulate fuel and speed than the mechanical OEM governor. Mind you, if a set only does 1800 rpm, it's not that bad for start up speed. I just love when a big generator ramps up RPM after warm up.

 

[ultrarunner]

I just snapped a picture

The temp tag on the heater is 1800W with literature stating 140 F

The label on the box is 1500W and a colder temp

 

[Industrial Toys]

That is a crap load of heat. I have a 530 watt block heater in my Onan 7.5. I played around with a transformer that halved voltage to 60 volts and thus the power is a quarter at 124 watts (I miscalculated that actually, thinking it would be half) but was surprised that given time, the block was warm to the touch.

 

[Rustyiron]

Where I come from we call that a Power House

That'll do, can I adopt that one?:laughing:

 

[Chilliwack Murray]

That’s a standard industrial heater usually called a beehive. You can get a lower temp thermostat (installs on the underside under the cover where the cord is) but 1800W heaters don’t last long, they just get too hot when they’re running even though they shut off. Best bet is a 1000W, they last almost forever, just runs longer to provide the same amount of heat to the block.

140F is also way too hot, an inlet temp of 140 means your block will be around 170 or more and all the hoses and gaskets will fail within a year or two. That’s like running the engine 24/7. You only need to keep the block around room temperature if you allow it to run for a few minutes before putting load on it. The heater should never keep the engine more than 120-130F.

On the topic of inline heaters on rad hoses, they are the least efficient as most the heat is lost through the rad and the flow is restricted by the engine thermostat. I’ve seen a few over the years but they’ve always been abandoned and not in use, just left in the hose.

If you use an immersion heater in a frost plug , you can get a thermostat well and a wye cord to control the temperature but like someone else said, they don’t last all that long... 1-3 years typically.

 

[Chilliwack Murray]

Also, use the very best quality hose on the outlet side of that heater, 1800W will cook it in no time. Do yourself a favour and thread a couple full port ball valves into the block so you can isolate the heater when the hose needs replacing... If I remember right, that engine had a brass frost plug adapter on the back of the heat for the block heater hose, might be tough to get the hose barb out as I don't think there was a way to hold it from turning once it was installed.