Arcticspud
Veteran Member
Has anyone done this off a Cummins 6BTA? Simple?
My buddy's Red Dot bus heater was quite noisy. Our Heatercraft is so quiet we can barely hear it, and does a great job keeping our cabin warm and dry.We run the Wabasto underway. Much much quieter than the bus heater fan in the salon. When the Wabasto is running while underway I only realize it's on when I step outside to the aft cockpit.
There are two simple taps on the starboard side of the engine. The supply is on top the return is lower behind the alternator and just forward of the oil filter. Which must be removed to access the fitting. View attachment 49538View attachment 49539
My buddy's Red Dot bus heater was quite noisy. Our Heatercraft is so quiet we can barely hear it, and does a great job keeping our cabin warm and dry.
One problem you may run into is that the heater system may cool the engine system more than normal. The thermostat bypass is designed to keep the coolant at a minimum temp and still circulate coolant to avoid hotspots, and with cold water into the heat xchanger it may be at the minimum. Add in another cooling source, at idle, and your engine may be running very cold. Newer electronic engines especially don't deal well with this.
Install petcocks at the engine where you connect so you can shut it off if you need to or if you don't need the heat.
This is true, though in practice it doesn't seem to be much of an issue. The only time I have seen a noticeable engine temp drop was this past summer in Alaska. Water temps were in the 40's, air temp was in the low 40's, heat was running throughout the whole boat (and keeping up without any issue), and we were idling for a long time while picking though ice. Other than being in the arctic, I think these were about the worst case conditions. Our normal idle temp is 160F, and as I recall it dropped a couple of degrees below that, but only a couple. With any RPM above idle, it came right back up. My assumption has always been that the size of the diversion ports are small enough to prevent over cooling of the engine.
What you want is often called a bus heater. Heatercraft, among others makes the exchanger/blower unit. You use the same engine taps that supply coolant to your boat's hot water heater, if installed. You typically plumb the water heater first and then the coolant flow goes to the bus heater and then back to the engine.
There are some hydraulic tricks about elevation and venting that need to be observed.
You also need to know that heat will stop fairly soon after you shut the engine down.
David