Propane oil pan heater?

[bitzer]

I saw the weed burner idea on Gold Rush. The kid aimed it at the belly pan under the oil pan. Open flames near my oily/greasy beast are not happening. I've heard too many burned up skidder stories and I guarantee the insurance co. would weasel out of it. I did find a battery powered torpedo heater. Supposed to run for 8 hours on a rechargeable battery. They wanted $170 for it. I went with a dual burner that you mount to a 20lb LP tank. I'm thinking aim it at the oil pan and then once shes fired up/ lean it against the hydraulic tank. By tomorrow they are talking single digits already. 20s by Thursday and 30s by Friday.

Northman- I do like the copper plumbing idea around the pan! That's kind of what I was lookin for. I wonder how well that wood work. It would be cool to have something like that that would be submerged in the oil pan. The coil on the inside and a couple of plug ins on the outside.

 

[firebrick43]

http://www.chiefaircraft.com/aircraft/hangar-ramp-supplies/engine-preheaters/red-mh-300.html

These are used on aircraft in the middle nowhere to preheat but can be used on anything. You would need to make some simple canvas skirts to go over the side opening and radiator opening.

There is another system on the same site that includes above mounted on a cart with battery so it is a stand alone system.

These are safer than salamanders and much much safer than weed burners or any open flame.

There are diesel fired coolant heaters but you won't like the cost. We package them on some of our 4000 hp diesels and are on trains many times.

Hooking up your trucks coolant lines to the machine or a coil around the oil pan would be very hard as the coolant ion the truck would be under pressure.

Don't know what one would cost but maybe buy a class 8 APU from a wrecking yard. APU would heat coolant and the electricity it produces top off batteries and run an electric oil pan heater.

The old cats with pony motors made extreme cold weather starts nice. They were tied into the coolant system and the exhaust ran thru the intake manifold preheating it.

 

[Naked Arborist]

LMAO! How long you think a bed of coals or a fire is gonna last at -20??? Bitz, you're gonna have to have a trailer now with a OWB on it to take on the jobs, should be cost effective

Hey, 95% of my stories are the truth. Don't forget the 1000 gallon tank trailer to feed the OWB

 

[northmanlogging]

I figure you could poke a couple holes though the side of the oil pan and seal em up like a steam boiler, granted its a total pain in the ass, and probably leak more then ever. I'f you have fairly large drain plug you could drill the plug and put a loop in it... These are both probably bad ideas...

The other option is to get some of that coil o copper tubing and a pipe bender, make a couple of laps around the fattest part of the pan and plumb it into the radiator lines. The coil of copper stuff is pretty easy to bend, and if you use a pipe bender of the proper size you can get fairly sharp bends without kinking it to bad. Use the muffler tape stuff to build a sort of blanket around the coils and the pan, or a welding blanket whatever works, could just need a loop around the bottom of the pan (this is all speculative), run it off the end of the loop back to the truck, that way the flow isn't screwed up to bad and once you disconnect the truck it shouldn't have flow through it.

The coolant tie in trick works pretty damn good, used to use that to start the wifey's crap mercedes during winter, for those that don't get it. You put a tee on your heater supply and return lines of the truck, plumb each one to a ball valve, then on the stubborn piece of equipment you do the same thing, although some machines can be difficult to plumb like this an account of not having a heater, make up a set of connecting hoses, pull up close connect A to B open all the valves wait 10-30 minutes and start er up all warmed up. Just make sure you're using similar coolants/antifreeze, and keep them topped up (tend to loose a little bit when connecting the hoses and stuff)

 

[Naked Arborist]

You need to make up your mind to heat the coolant or the oil. Myself I'd heat the oil with a small copper or SS coil at the base of the pan or running through it with a few loops. Propane fired would be your easiest and fastest heat source. Hang the bottle on the machine and put a push button tip igniter on it. Leave the exit tube longer and clear of all combustibles.

 

[homemade]

I'd say weed burner on the ground under the machine with a few tarps over it, cover the machine when you shut down to keep the heat in and toe cold out as long as possible. For cheap they make portable pop up shelters with sides that might be feesable? I don't know how many machines or so in. One thing I learned too is location where you park them. Ie don't park it on the top of a bald hill. Wedge it by some trees to help block the wind. I've used a smaller hand held torch to warm up the intake manifold. I also heard that silicone spray is better then ether because it lubes the cylinder and less flash point to prevent ether lock.


Sent from the shitter, the only place it get to read arboristsite!

 

[OlympicYJ]

Seen an old Fairbanks-Morse diesel heated with a torch. I'd just scrape the oil off and use the weedburner. I'll ask the old man what they did on the pipeline but in super cold weather they never shut anything off and lots of times they were running multiple shifts so didn't have to. Also had the big heaters and tents. Kinda hard to start something in 50 below. Maybe a crap ton of pan heaters on the pan and the hyd tank and a little honda/yamaha generator running all night. North's Idea with the coolant tie in lines sounds like a good one.

Side note thinking about cold, frozen gravel wears out D8 & 9 single shank rippers like non-other. The old man would sit at the end of the pit with a pickup load of shanks and every time the cat would come back to start a new pass he'd have to knock out the ripper and put in a new shank. If I remember right they glowed red when they pulled em out of the ground.

 

[Ak650Echo]

Might give theses a go.

http://www.engineblockheater.net/page1.html

http://www.translectricinc.com/catalog/partdetail.aspx?partno=LP6500-24V


http://www.espar.com/products/fuel-operated-heaters.html

 

[imalogger]

I use a yamaha 2400 inverter generator mainly. Since I'm usually working alone I'll get the generator going on the machine as soon as I get to the site, then go drop trees for an hour or 2 til the skidder is ready to roll. Those inverter generators are small/light enough to fit in the cab of the truck so you know they will be warm and start good when ya get to the site. The skidder has one of those 2000 watt recirculating tank heaters plus it's got a 1000 watt block heater. I'll run 2 generators on it if I'm in a real hurry, gets it warm pretty quick. I think if I was you I'd just use a honda 2000 inverter with an aux fuel tank on it and start it up when you leave at night, and just keep it warm all night. I doubt it would take a whole lot more fuel than idling your truck for an hour or fuel for a big lp heater. If you have a john deere skidder with the rotary pump you can turn the screw in on the pump to disengage it till the engine is running, they start soo much easier without the drag of the pump when it's cold. For heating up the oil in our manlift on real cold days I took apart one of the oil filled electric space heaters and took the heater element, and wired it up to a cord. The tank has a big enough cap on it that I can drop the heater down into the oil, makes everything a lot less stiff when it's cold.

 

[wowzers]

I worked on a Thunderbird that had a propane heater deal. It had a tarp that went over the engine compartment.