Pre Heater / Block heaters

IanFiTheDwarf said:

You shouldn't need a bypass hose, no need to heat the water in the radiator, its just a waste of electricity. The block heater thermostat should be set below the car thermostat so it doesn't open when pre heating and once the engine is running it will still take a few minutes to get up to full temp.

I'm not sure where to break in to the heater hose as the car is in my workshop so I can't have a look right now.

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when you can it would be great to know still waiting for the heater to turn up so i cant start the build yet

IanFiTheDwarf said:

I would advise strongly against using any kind of plastic container to house an immersion heater element! If the water level was to drop the element would melt threw the plastic and anything else nearby in your engine bay. If it is housed in metal it would still get very hot but eventually the thermostat backup would trip and shut of the element until it was reset.

You can get an Essex Flange which bolts threw so dose not need welded but would mean using a bigger housing to give enough room for the flange.

Look what I have just found

**** Supreme Plumbing & Electrical Supplies >> 11 Inch GEEZA ELEMENT HEATER - IH305 ****

I was goggling for 1” bsp heating elements which can be fitted in to a piece of iron pipe and it just appeared in my search, why am I doing all this work?


I would also suggest that this heater is only ever connected to the mains threw an RCD as the cap on the end of an immersion heater cant be sealed 100% from the elements and may at some point get damp.

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Well 10 days later my Geeza heater arrived and what a piece of crap !!! the connectors are all ****ed the copper body is all bent there are screws sticking through and the aluminium cap doesnt fit aside from that life is good lol still not sure where to plumb the lot in though lol

The picture below shows the two pipes which connect to the heater matrix. The red arrow points to the pipe from the cylinder head to the heater matrix and the green arrow is the return pipe from the heater matrix to the water pump.





You need to connect the block heater in the return pipe so that with the block heater pump running the water will flow from the block heater threw the heater matrix and then into the cylinder head.





The pump will have to be of the centrifugal type so that it dose not restrict the water flow when the engine is running.

I am thinking about fitting the heater vertically next to the washer bottle mainly to keep the plumbing simple and save the second battery tray in case I want to fit a second battery in the future.





Hope that helps

right heater all built and at present is heating about 20 gallons of water to see how it performs all good at the moment gonna be a buggwer to mount though

is a centrifugal pump a central heating pump ?

palace said:

right heater all built and at present is heating about 20 gallons of water to see how it performs all good at the moment gonna be a buggwer to mount though

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What about your auto insurance? Telling them you made a DIY hot water heater? what happens if it catch fire or shorts out and electrocute some one??
And How do you heat your water at work (after sitting 9hrs) for the return trip home??

I think I mentioned earlier that you should connect the heater threw an RCD to protect anyone from electric shock.

The immersion heater element is protected by two thermostats one of which is designed to operate even if there is no water so its just wiring to worry about and I am a qualified electrician amongst other things so I am confident there wont be any problems.

As for insurance if anything happens they will tell you where to go but that’s just the same for a lot of things if you do it yourself.

When its really bad I will just have to defrost my car the old fashioned way when I am at work but its always worse in the morning anyway so at least it will help there.

How long an extension lead can you get in the back of a disco!



Here is what I got done today



I stuffed up a bit by clamping the immersion heater in the vice while I silver soldered the flange in and ended up badly warping it so I just soldered it in permanently so if the element is gone I’m stuffed.

So....did this work?
Is the water simply passing through the big tube from one end to the other?
Which pump did you use?