My owner's manual (and the chassis manual, for that matter) list the heater as optional. My theory is that if the original owner didn't pay for that option, they just put a box that looks like a heater in there. Many of us have those today. Actually, I find my heater works best when the outdoor temperature is over 60 degrees farenheit.
I found these cool little heaters at a local surplus place I think they are from a tank or something and are really compact but they range from 8750 BTU to 16000 BTU so I was just wondering what the rating would be so I could at least double it. I think 16000 would be a bit overkill but then again I could cook my lunch on it then. Eternal
The stock heater in my 76 fj40 worked incredibly well. In fact I had to disconnect the rear heater wire so it would not come on when I put the front in hi. I did a bit of work to get it to function very well(in New england) Took out the heater and cleaned off all the crap on the fins of the core. cleaned out the core with muriatic acid from home depot. got foam weather stripping and made sure there were no leaks in the ducting or on the flaps. made sure the heater vavle on the firewall was clear of deposits and debris from the cooling system. took the fan motor apart and cleaned/lubed it up and made sure the brushes had enough life in them. It cranks out the heat, but I hardly use it now as I am in SoCal.
I think I will take the salesmans suggestion for a new heater. My rig is a DD and it is about 10 miles to work each day and it takes about 9.6 for it to heat up. Any other heater conversions from standard heating systems(wrecker) that I might want to look at before my purchase. I just want to COOK. Eternal
Eternal - we must have identical body types, I too like to cook and in my opinion, why have a heater unless it actually heats! I tried refurbishiung my stock one -new foam, cleaned core etc, even installed a blower motor with double the cfm of stock one. Still wasn't my idea of warm. Then I watched the Red Green show on tv and said to myself, "Now what would he do"? Therefore, I am in the process of installing the front heater system from a Winnebago class A motor home. Fits between the bucket seats in front and will provide enough heat that I plan on driving around in my underwear in the middle of the winter.
i live on the east coast and it gets realy cold out here i run no doors no top no windshield so i called heater crafa and ordered one of there boat heaters 40.000 btu now wheeling in the winter tollerable even in the open cruiser!
Thanks for the thoughts. Never thought of a boat heater. Got a manufacturer just down the road from my shop, think I will follow showtimes example. Eternal
I just bought a heater box and core out of a '77. The box was in great shape, even the "gaskets" were ok. I decided to clean the core, blew it our w/compressed air. Ran some water through it, looked OK. Then I filled that fawker up with CLR, like Paul Harvey reccommends. You should have seen the crap that came out of the core. Sort of a poor man's boil out. Put it in full strength, let it sit about 20 min then flushed it out, repeat, looks clean. Before installing, I'm going to have the radiator shop pressure test it, it should hold 12-14lbs. Good Luck, Ed Long
