Cabin Heat

72 posts in this topic

Posted

Good Morning,

I need some advice on cabin heat.  Per the picture below a gentleman made a diverter that strapped to the muffler.  My question is if it would be okay to welding one together and weld it to the muffler or should I should strap it to muffler.  Pros and cons please.  The only reason I would weld is to keep vibration from wearing a hole in muffler where the diverter touches and to seal off any cracks where the diverter touches muffler.  What's your thoughts?

 

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Posted

It seems that leaving it unattached and providing a gasket-like interface might be best. Welding would stick the two dissimilar materials together, different strengths and stiffnesses. That would mean that the cracks could be induced. Instead, how about a high-temp fabric wrap that fills the gap where the two materials would otherwise touch:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-50Ft-Exhaust-Manifold-Header-Black-Pipe-Heat-Wrap-Tape-10-Ties-Kit-HIGH-TEMP/263835573416?hash=item3d6dd35ca8:g:9lsAAOSwbehbxULN:rk:2:pf:0

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DEI-2-inch-x-15-ft-Roll-Titanium-Header-Exhaust-Heat-Wrap-High-Temp-010129/273315522092?hash=item3fa2dfe62c:g:raAAAOSwZVlXt3z5:rk:4:pf:0

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Posted (edited)

Maybe consider a heater core type cabin heat?

A lot safer and also gives you additional cooling capacity if you ever needed it.

Couple extra pounds of course.

(Firewall is on left, white tube going up to windshield, fans ziptied on top that blow down through it)

1541725505904-966501969.jpg

Edited by Yamma-Fox

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Posted

I'll second wrapping it with the high temperature insulating tape. I had a 1967 V.W. bug when I was younger. Any heat that the engine produced was lost in the ducts that ran under the car. I had to scrape the windows on the inside while driving it all winter. It never got more than 10 degrees warmer than the outside air with that poor design. Not even a heater fan on those cars back then. I added a fan from J.C. Whitney and gained air movement but it was nothing but cold air movement. If I was doing it today it would be insulating tape on all the duct work trying to save all the heat I can get. If you can duct the air coming through the radiator through your muffler heater it might even work better with the radiator serving as a preheat. How cold of weather are you expecting to be flying in?

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Posted (edited)

I had the factory heat muff on the muffler and after many attempts with no noticeable heat went to the hot water heat on my 912.  Works great now other than all the drafts I have not address.  Built my own for about $150. Fifteen dollar heater core from NAPA $60 fan from UPI.  Guess I have less than a $100 into it  The middle px is of the shroud before the fan was attached  

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Edited by wypaul
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Posted

Agreeing with Yamma-Fox's comment on "safer" I installed a water heater with an electric fan from T7 Design Thermal Solutions (they have distributors in the US) https://www.t7design.co.uk/products/heating/heaters.html  (~115 USD including VAT)

heater.thumb.JPG.d68406ad7f0e50ba45fc1a4

I have the 2.2 kW Micro Heater 12 volt model (1.3 lbs). As my Simonini doesn't get that hot maybe I should have gone with the 3.5kw Lightweight model. And I can confirm that it can be used for cooling in the summer. When it is really hot even my Simonini can get warm and turning on the "heater" brings down the temperature. 
It is connected via a simple T after the water pump and another T just before the main radiator. No valves, i.e.always open, it is therefore always warm but unless I turn on the fan it doesn't really heat the cabin so no issues in the summer.

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Posted

That is one of the best solutions I have seen....Thanks Fred

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Posted (edited)

So i have a question about the heatercore style heater someguys r  puttin in.  With the heater mounted under the dash or whereever in cockpit u mount it, the heater is always useing the same air inside the cockpit to continue to make warm. And with a human or ur canine companion inside the moisture in ur breath and the heater resuculating the warm air will FOG ur windows up somthing bad.  In the pic lv2plyguitar posted i dont think heatsheild wraped around muffler enough and the air can travel to fast by muffler from air inlet to outlet. 

So i still like the muffler heater, long as u make it right and protect the muffler from being worn thro, i just finished mine on the Bluefox i used 1" firedoor gasket, aluminum rivited to the inside of some 6" stovepipe, hinged it so could get it on muffler, and a couple pices of 2"pipe welded to stovepipe to hook my hot air tube to. Total cost was just over $50 bucks. 

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Edited by Buckchop

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Posted

Heat?  Who needs heat???? Now if someone could come up with a light, cheap air conditioner, I'd jump on it in a second! :P  81 degrees (F) here right now, at noon on 11/9/2018.

Mark

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Posted

So i have a question about the heatercore style heater someguys r  puttin in.  With the heater mounted under the dash or whereever in cockpit u mount it, the heater is always useing the same air inside the cockpit to continue to make warm. And with a human or ur canine companion inside the moisture in ur breath and the heater resuculating the warm air will FOG ur windows up somthing bad.

Buckchop, in theory you are obviously right but in reality, and in the far from airtight cockpit of our favorite planes, it has never been a problem.  

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Posted

Heat?  Who needs heat???? Now if someone could come up with a light, cheap air conditioner, I'd jump on it in a second! :P  81 degrees (F) here right now, at noon on 11/9/2018.

Mark

Mark, here is a cheap and light air condition for you:
Avid_open_window.thumb.jpg.d74588b766352

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Posted

Well u r right Fred about that, guess i just go the extra mile to sealup every airleak i can, im a wimp when comes to gettin cold hahahahahaaaaa to many frozen yrs out workin on equipment in the winter or driving them cross country in winter to a remote mine, 

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Posted

I would be against welding a cabin heat shield to your exhaust because there would be no way of inspecting it for cracks....danger of monoxide poisoning 

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Posted

Buckchop… I had a heating system very similar to your pics. The major difference would be wrapping the metal around your exhaust. When I wrapped 

mine in a foil based heat wrap...what a difference..Then I made my intake into more of a scoop.The heat was actually quite good after that..

.Now I'm 

putting in a new motor, new layout....new solutions.

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Posted

Heat?  Who needs heat???? Now if someone could come up with a light, cheap air conditioner, I'd jump on it in a second! :P  81 degrees (F) here right now, at noon on 11/9/2018.

Mark

Mark, here is a cheap and light air condition for you:
Avid_open_window.thumb.jpg.d74588b766352

Fred,

No doubt!  It is on my list when I finally get around to rebuilding my Avid.  I got my seaplane rating in a J-3, and having those top doors open was wonderful!

Mark

 

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Posted (edited)

Agreeing with Yamma-Fox's comment on "safer" I installed a water heater with an electric fan from T7 Design Thermal Solutions (they have distributors in the US) https://www.t7design.co.uk/products/heating/heaters.html  (~115 USD including VAT)

heater.thumb.JPG.d68406ad7f0e50ba45fc1a4

I have the 2.2 kW Micro Heater 12 volt model (1.3 lbs). As my Simonini doesn't get that hot maybe I should have gone with the 3.5kw Lightweight model. And I can confirm that it can be used for cooling in the summer. When it is really hot even my Simonini can get warm and turning on the "heater" brings down the temperature. 
It is connected via a simple T after the water pump and another T just before the main radiator. No valves, i.e.always open, it is therefore always warm but unless I turn on the fan it doesn't really heat the cabin so no issues in the summer.

Fred if your flying in temperatures around 20 to 32 degrees is that heater sufficient to warm the cabin?  Thanks for your suggestions.

Edited by lv2plyguitar

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Posted

 

Fred if your flying in temperatures around 20 to 32 degrees is that heater sufficient to warm the cabin?  Thanks for your suggestions.

Well, maybe we should define “sufficient”... as mentioned I would suggest one of the larger models unless you engine is running really hot even below freezing... Mine don’t so the result is not “warm” but rather “less cold”. But as you don’t really start undressing in an Avid the extra degrees are really pleasant and do make a difference.

But ...to you and Buckchop... if you plan to dry a wet dog a cold winter day this might not be the solution...

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Posted

The air intake for my muffler heater will have a scoop im building that will b mounted on the lower fiberglass cowl for easy removale and line backup when put lower cowl backon. Here pic of where comes out thro cowl, still building the aluminum scoop on the english wheel and stretcher to mount on there. Hope it works for me,  Hahhaaaaa

image.jpg

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Posted

The air intake for my muffler heater will have a scoop im building that will b mounted on the lower fiberglass cowl for easy removale and line backup when put lower cowl backon. Here pic of where comes out thro cowl, still building the aluminum scoop on the english wheel and stretcher to mount on there. Hope it works for me,  Hahhaaaaa

image.jpg

You know how to test it! ;-)

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Posted

Yes how to test the muffer heater is to fly the plane.

But i was refuring to the english wheel and metal strecher. Still a long ways for flyin the Bluefox 0038, the heater in my Blackfox 0021 works good. 

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Posted

I’m curious how to install a heater core. Do I tee off the radiator line and then tee back in or does all the radiator fluid route through the radiator and then to engine?

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Posted (edited)

Tee to the core after the expansion tank before the radiator and tee back in after the radiator before the 1" returns to the pump.  I used y's facing to optimism flow directions but I know several others using tees that work just fine.

The core is connected parallel to the radiator if that make more sense. 

Edited by wypaul

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Posted

So after expansion tank is four hoses going to heads 

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Posted (edited)

Actually those hoses are the hot water coming from the heads.  The 1" hose is the outlet and that should be routed to the rad.  The 1" hose coming from the other end of the radiator then goes to the water pump which Is pumped out to the bottom of the heads thru the heads and back to the expansion tank.  So now hopefully my last post will make more sense the tee's are then 1" x 5/8".  So if you want to use copper a 1x1x1/2" sweat tee will work for a cheap solution but does not allow much clamping room.  The wye's from UPI are more expensive but were worth it to me.

UPI's part # for the Y  is Z17550 it is a little hard to find without that. 

https://www.universalpartsinc.com/

Edited by wypaul

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Posted

Gates has a good selection of tees and reducers as well.

My system simply has a tee right before the hot goes in the radiator, and another right after the cold comes out.  Run those up to the core.  Pretty simple. I have a SOV by the core but I don't think you'd necessarily need it. 

 

Screenshot_2018-11-11-09-32-22.png

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