Winter Prep Questions

[REZARF]

Howdy-

This one is for all the northerners out there. My cruiser is now my one and only daily driver, and I am prepping it for winter use here in Iowa. It will most likely be cold from November until mid March, with it being below freezing for all of January... even the highs.

Any advice for getting the most out of the factory heater? I am planning on getting the core "Hot tanked" at a radiator shop, my cooling system is new and clean.

What about blocking the radiator? What and when should I use some kind of wind blocking device?

I am sure there are other tricks of the trade, please shoot me any you can think of.


Thanks for your time.

Drew <><

 

[JohnL]

Jeff Zepp had an article out there on improving heating, including cleaning out all the ducts, etc. He does make a recommendation about a spacer and the radiator cap which I don't entirely understand so maybe of you understand you can elaborate....here's the link and good luck!

http://rzeppa.org/


I ended up adding a heater to the rear (plumbed to the radiator) from a marine supply store...works great and very durable.

 

[Jetboy]

I'm in Montana and we have some cold weather on occasion... I would recomend spending your time insulating your rig. if your factory heating is working correctly it will be fine as long as your rig is sealed up. good weatherstriping is the first thing to fix then make sure the top seals well to the body all around. after that you would want to insulate the lid. If the factory liner is still there it does a decent job, if not turn the top over and glue in some honeycomb insulation... the stuff with the aluminum on both sides, not sure of the name. then put some carpeting over it. don't use used carpeting or you will continualy have sh*t falling on your head no matter how well you've vaccumed it. (I did that on my CJ5 . at this point you should be good to go.
If you need even more heat it took a twin fan heater core from a intl. semi. and mounted it on the back fenderof my CJ5. worked great, I could drive arround at 0 with the windows open. I don't think there is any need to block the radiator.