I put in a block heater yesterday. It's one of the "circulation tank" types and I bought it at Napa for around $60. Here's a
link.
Installation is a bit of a pain. Step one is to remove one of the the lower coolant drain from the block. These are small, flat, allen headed screw in plugs down low on the block. There is one on either side. Both my plugs had liberal engine paint on them and were pretty tough to get out. I stripped the passenger sit plug using hand tools so I broke out the compressor for the second one. Even then then I had to crank the regulator up to 105psi and bang away for 30 seconds before the plug finally came out.
Here's where the plug used to be. Now it has the adapter and the hose there.
With this design of heater the inlet of the heater tank must be lower than the drain that is feeding it. This is easy off the lower rad hose but gets tougher when your drawing coolant off the bottom of the block. There aren't many options for mounting this low but I think mine turned out pretty slick. I have the tank located in the fender well, mounted on the outside of the frame rails with the coolant hoses going through the rgg rails and fenders. There are no mounting bolts or straps or plates. Just the pressure from the hoses and some strategically placed pieces of old rubber.
From the front you can see the drain, hose, frame rail and then the bottom of the tank heater.
End of drain hose from block/mounting system.
Hose "mount"
Mounted with the top outlet going through an enlarged hole in the inner fender.
The system worked very well this morning. The weather isn't "cold" yet but it will be soon. My heater is a 1500 watt unit so it has no problem boiling the coolant. Circulation is excellent except for the heater box. The instructions called for returning heated coolant to the top hose of the heater but this allows a cold pocket of cold water to remain in the core. Hopefully I can return through the bottom hose without problems as this should flow through the heater.
Matt
