Petrol Powered Water Pre Heater

[berni29]

I used to use my plus 2 to go to the station every workday. It was a 7 minute drive or so. The car would run fine when warm, but was a real pig when cold. On the station run it never got the time to warm up. In winter it was much worse. The car was always left out overnight as well. Driving to the station was not fun.

I was thinking about getting a plug in electric water heater, when I found out about a device called the Webasto hi-top. It is about a foot long by 6 inches by 9 inches (from memory). I fitted it in the nosecone of my elan and ran the petrol and water supplies to it. It has an air intake and exhaust with a little silencer which I routed to point at the sump. It has a little digital timer which goes in the car and you set it to come on 20 mins or so before you want to use the car. It allows you to set three differnt on times. It sounds like a mini gas boiler when running. I would get off the train in the evening and people would look at the car strangely as it would be humming and whistling away.

It was fantastic. It heats the water to 78 degrees C and you can even get it to turn the car interior fan on as well. I never felt that brave about the battery though. Even in the hardest winter I would jump in and the car would run fine straight off the bat. In fact I used it whenever I drove the car from cold. I would start it off, start the car, and it would heat up ultra fast. Apparently these units are used as cab heaters on lorries, and on land rovers in scandinavia etc.

I crashed my elan last year nose first and the unit got a real whack. Wrote the car off. I will be putting it in the plus 2 that I am rebuilding though. Hope that it still works. I think it cost me ?700 or so (the heater not the elan .

It could be that someone who suffered like me might be interested in the story thats all.

Berni

[JACKJABBA]

Berni. ?700 :blink: You could have baught an old Fiesta just for the train run, and kept the Elan nice and snug in the garage with a hot water bottle. I am sure it is safe to use, but I would have been wondering if I would have a car or a burnt out wreck to go back to. :unsure:

Hope its ok.

Jack