Technical Electric Heaters are there any that do a good job?

I want to get some heat in my 51 Dodge truck as I drive all winter when there is no snow. I really don't want to go through the water based heater installation but jus don't see a great electric one. Thanks Joe

 

Not really practical. Electric resistance heaters use a lot of power, probably more than your truck's electrical system can generate. The standard coolant heater is reclaiming what would otherwise be waste heat so it's actually that rare bird, a freebee.

 

Save yourself the grief, many have tried.
Summit has an under dash unit you plumb in for $200

 

Get yourself some sheet metal and fabricate a old-style manifold heater.

Also buy an oxygen mask.

 

A typical coolant based automotive heater would be between 20,000 Btu/hr and maybe 40,000 Btu/hr plus for a larger vehicle with dual heaters. Doing the conversion;

20,000 Btu/hr = 5.86 kW

Assuming 13V, that equates to 446A!

For a small vintage truck cab, you might only need 5,000 Btu/hr =. 1.47 kW

Again,****uming 13V, that then still equates to 113A!

You start to get the picture, and that huge amounts of current would be required which are just not practical for a “standard” alternator.

 

WOW! Every time I see a Tesla going down the road in Minnesota this winter, I'll really be impressed!

 

With the AC, Heater, or any other “convenience” device in use in an electric car consumes energy that reduces the miles the vehicle can travel……one of the many things to consider that most do not and sales persons don’t mention.

 

That's what I thought, too. I know several people with them, and it doesn't seem to be a problem. Battery technology has come a long way; just look at the cordless tools available currently.

 

If using an electric heater you need to look at battery reserve time and how many amps pull total in vehicle ,think of your battery as a gas tank if battery too small and like a 60 amp alternator it will not keep up,
I have a AMG with 150 mints of reserve @
95amps. 65 pounds !! Just my Stal fan pulls over 45 amps Not including Msd and other electronics . My alternator is 105 A with a #6 ga charge wire back to battary thats 18 inch's long . i'm getting ready to experiment with #4 or #2 charge wire. As of now I am using gel bat with 90 minutes of reserve time @ 55 amps , not enough when Electric fan kicks on.
My self Dive in winter ,
I have a Art Deco heater on shelf for some time , have not installed,
My 5w is what I call a race rod ,,
But thinking maybe this year taken a
Like 10x10 brass or aluminum core
With thought on lines just for winter
& small 12v flat Electric fan like used in a Computer towel with on / off may be
2 speed switch , then remove Near spring .

 

Pull the heat off the exhaust pipe if you don't want to do the hot water heat. Wrap a section of good exhaust pipe with sheetmetal with a small gap around the forward facing surface (under the seat inside of the seat support brackets the seat sits on). Dodge installed a round hole in the floor pan (my 49 Dodge truck actually had a removable cover over the hole) you may have to cut the hole out. I actually had to replace the cap covering the hole in my floor pan, I cut out a piece of sheet metal and welded it to the floor.



From what I read someplace, that hole, and an sheet metal wrapped exhaust was an under the seat heater option in colder areas. Supposedly there was a short tube with a*****erfly valve to close off the hear when it was not needed. With the original truck exhaust, that hole was directly above the exhaust pipe. Who knows if it was true or not, could have been just a cab floor drain.
Duct that wrapped exhaust pipe up through the hole in the floor. The heat captured in the sheet metal that is wrapped around the exhaust pipe and ducked up through the floor pan will begin producing hot air shortly after the motor has started. You control how much hot are enters the cab by how much you roll down the door widow (less then an inch max). The heat comes up under the seat. As long as the exhaust in front of the wrap was good, I wouldn't expect many fumes, but it wouldn't be too hard to filer the in coming air. I suspect a guy would have to experiment with the air clearance required around the exhaust pipe.

 

VWs use a metal thing around the exhaust. Kinda what Gene is describing, works well.

 

A coolant based under dash heater is way simpler than anything else. Electric feed and two hoses. A electric one you’re going to be into fitting an alternator as well as the heater unit

 

No.

 

The Tesla AC and heat operate at much higher voltage, about 360! That allows the amperage draw to be under 15 amps.

 

Amazon has a small water heater for under $70 . I installed one in a V-8 A truck . It went to Pennsylvania ( I live in s Florida) and the new owner says it works good . Had a 2 speed fan .

 

Speaking of cordless tools, these are an excellent investment. 5 or 6 hours on the high heat setting.
It even keeps you warm when you get out of the car. You can get socks too...

 

Lemme see; 15 AMPS times 360 volts equals 4800 watts. It doesn't seem so extreme that way. Don't they also harvest heat from the batteries as well?

Higher voltage seems to be the answer. No wonder Tesla beat Edison 175 years ago.

 

Less than that; the motor(s) are liquid-cooled, they could probably divert at least some of that to the heater. Or the AC/heat could be configured as a heat pump rather than two separate systems.

 

I used inexpensive seat heaters in my '50. Plug em in and hit a*****on.

 

I was going to suggest electric seat heaters as well, they're available as cushions so you can remove when not needed. Other than that, I'd install coolant based heater, did that in my roadster.

 

They don't do much for defrosting the windshield...

 

Stewart Warner made a gas fueled heater in olden times.

Buddy had an old VW with some sort of a more modern version of a gas heater.

 

The heater in my 53 Dodge PU works great! Defrosters not so much

 

Are there any engine oil or A/T fluid coolers on this vehicle? Is there any way they could be relocated in such a fashion that you could reroute the heat they put off into the cab of the truck?

 

If you have your heart set on an electric heater I would suggest adding a second high AH capacity battery to the system. EV have That may entail as much work as adding a coolant based heater though.

In my '46 pickup I picked up a wonderful little heater online that fits in a seven-inch cube. It has the exchanger, a fan, ducting for defroster vents, a variable fan motor switch and works perfectly, throwing out enough heat to bake us. About ten years ago it was around $100. Now the price is probably trippled.

 

But still use electrical power that take away from range!

 

I hesitate to add anything to this thread as many on the HAMB told me I was an idiot (not always incorrect) and that it wouldn't work (and to be fair it hasn't in some ways), but I built my roadster around an electric heater. I****embled a nice-looking flathead, running with no hood sides and didn't want to see hoses running through my firewall. So, I gave it a go.

I have friends that have ridden in the car, and they will tell you it gets warm in there with the heater running. But it draws the juice like a middle-aged cougar at a college kegger. You don't want to run it an idle for long with your headlights on, but it isn't at an idle when you need it, is it?

The thing it doesn't do well is defrost my windscreen. The issue is that there is not enough fan speed. I built a diverter (cable activated from the control panel) to channel all of the output to the defroster vents, but it needs more fan to deliver the heat. There is not a lot of room under the dash of my little car for more of anything, but I have looked at all sorts of fans to increase efficiency. Currently it has an on/off/hi/low switch to control the fan/heater elements, a rheostat and defrost control.

Recently I was at the beach when the weather turned, and it poured! I hit the heater and defroster, and it made a nice little porthole for me to peer through (I must have looked like Captain Nemo in the Nautilus). Like Time Allen used to say, it needs more power!

To be honest, I wouldn't do it again, it was very expensive and quite complicated. The ceramic heater with brushless fan set me back $400+ if I recall correctly. 130 amp power gen (yeah, they don't make those), isolated circuit (not through my fuse panel) it has it's own breaker, industrial quick connector (so it can be removed easily) and a run of 6-gauge wire to the trunk mounted battery. Add the vintage heater I tore up to install it all in (plus the body and paint work to restore it) and the cost of sending the unit back to the manufacturer after I screwed up the wiring trying to get tricky and I spent an easy $1,500-$2,000 on this project and that is all parts, I provided the labor.

Here is the electric heater under my dash and here is the thread from 10 years ago when I designed and built it Technical - INSTANT HEAT, just dont add water (TECH WEEK) | The H.A.M.B..

 

Now that is one of the most impressive things I have seen in a long time. And you did it properly as well.

 

The electric heater may keep you from freezing to death but if your looking for warmth they work pretty the best in July & august.

I used one in my flathead powered '32 4 door sedan but it really didn't help. HRP

 

We had four electric truck at work, big, heavy 5 or more ton warehouse delivery trucks. 48, 12 volt batteries per truck. They used a little hot water heater, a small pump, and the original in cab heater system. They would loose 30 miles of range in cold weather and you still had to wear a coat to stay warm. We installed under seat electric heater that were plugged in all night to keep the cab warm so you could see out in the morning, it was the only way to make them drivable. The small electric water heaters were real power hogs!