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Old 11-09-2019, 07:27 PM   #1
Mini-Skoolie
 
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Heater removal: not sure what to do next...

I'm really stuck with how to best loop my heater lines back together/where to go from here. I've removed the rear heater and was planning to remove the others as well but have gotten mixed advice. Some say take them all out and others say to leave the front ones in so that you have a heat source when the bus is on and running. What do you recommend?!

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Old 11-09-2019, 08:25 PM   #2
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IDK how to do the configuration, but wouldn’t it be great to have heat while you’re rolling? What’s the drawback of keeping the front ones?
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Old 11-09-2019, 09:18 PM   #3
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It would help to know what bus you have? Go to the UserCP and fill out your profile with your location and bus info. Makes it easier to answer your questions.
On mine, I found the pump up front under the driver. Inlet and outlet nearby. So I just looped it back into the pump , deleteing everything going to the cabin, but not the dash.
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Old 11-09-2019, 10:02 PM   #4
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I would agree to keep the in dash heater. I deleted my rear heater and had to pull up a diagram of the water lines on a Duramax diesel to figure out how I had to loop mine back. It had a couple of aluminum "Ys" that I removed and some valves. Works well tho when it's cold keeps me warm and windshield from fogging up.
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Old 11-09-2019, 11:13 PM   #5
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More information is needed, starting with, is it Front-engine or Rear-engine? That maks a big difference.
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Old 11-10-2019, 08:29 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AKTrainum View Post
I'm really stuck with how to best loop my heater lines back together/where to go from here. I've removed the rear heater and was planning to remove the others as well but have gotten mixed advice. Some say take them all out and others say to leave the front ones in so that you have a heat source when the bus is on and running. What do you recommend?!
If I don’t turn on the circulating pump for my heat I don’t have the windshield defrost/defogger capability or heat for the driver. That is not something you can do without.
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Old 11-10-2019, 11:52 AM   #7
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Rated Cap: Blue-Bird says 72 pass.
I'm not prepared to take all my heaters out. I removed both of the big heaters that were under seats in the passenger compartment when I was taking the seats out, but I think I might put one back. I'm still thinking on what to do with the small heater under the driver's seat, but I might take it out. Not having it there will improve the flow to the main heater.

But there's no doubt in my mind that the main heater in front should stay even though I will need over 70 feet of new 1 inch hose for supply and return lines. And since that big heater is the highest point in the system, that will be where the airlock forms, and it's in a pretty tight spot, so I am not looking forward to dealing with that.

But I don't want to be dealing with steamy windows when driving, so I will be dealing with new hoses and airlocks to avoid that. And the booster pump will stay. I might not need it so much with one or possibly both of the passenger compartment heaters removed, but I see no point in removing it.
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Old 11-10-2019, 12:18 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gs1949 View Post
I'm not prepared to take all my heaters out. I removed both of the big heaters that were under seats in the passenger compartment when I was taking the seats out, but I think I might put one back. I'm still thinking on what to do with the small heater under the driver's seat, but I might take it out. Not having it there will improve the flow to the main heater.

But there's no doubt in my mind that the main heater in front should stay even though I will need over 70 feet of new 1 inch hose for supply and return lines. And since that big heater is the highest point in the system, that will be where the airlock forms, and it's in a pretty tight spot, so I am not looking forward to dealing with that.

But I don't want to be dealing with steamy windows when driving, so I will be dealing with new hoses and airlocks to avoid that. And the booster pump will stay. I might not need it so much with one or possibly both of the passenger compartment heaters removed, but I see no point in removing it.
I would definitely not remove the heater under the driver, it heats my feet, extremely important on the 2800 miles I just ran last week.
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Old 11-10-2019, 12:32 PM   #9
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Yeah, that's probably good advice, thanks. I've been thinking of putting that little heater from under the driver's seat into the bedroom, but I also don't like driving with cold feet.

I've looked at aftermarket heaters with the idea of putting one of those in the bedroom. But they all seem to have half inch hoses and I'm leery of putting a heater with half inch hoses into a system where everything else is 1 inch.
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Old 11-11-2019, 01:10 AM   #10
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definitely keep the front defrost dash heater. My windshield started fogging up on me one day this summer before I had it hooked back in. The plain old fan didn’t get rid of it.

2 points on the heater hose:
1: I don’t think you need to stick with 1” hose; You should be just fine reducing it to 3/4” or even half inch. The 1” feeds what 3 heaters? If one or two are out then you don’t need as much flow for the remaining heater(s). If it’s pressure in a smaller hose you’re worried about, it’s not going to make a difference; you can turn off the whole heater system with the on/off valves and it doesn’t make a difference.

2:if you do insist on using 1” hose be sure to shop around. I called like 5-6 places and all wanted around $5/foot. I finally came across a place that sold it for less than $2/foot, might’ve been $1.50/foot. It’s a place up here in Alberta called Gregg Distributors. It’s a warehouse that supplies all sorts of different things but not a truck repair place as the expensive places were.
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Old 11-11-2019, 03:38 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AKTrainum View Post
I'm really stuck with how to best loop my heater lines back together/where to go from here. I've removed the rear heater and was planning to remove the others as well but have gotten mixed advice. Some say take them all out and others say to leave the front ones in so that you have a heat source when the bus is on and running. What do you recommend?!
Whatever's best for you; leave them in, take them out, or maybe replace them? As was mentioned, those heaters are basically "free heat" as long as the engine is running.

My bus is a 1986 so the factory heaters were pretty crusty. I decided to replace them with some new ones.

I am deleting one of the three passenger heaters and replacing the other two with two of the units on the left. One will be in the base of our couch and the other will be in the bedroom area. I am also replacing the dash heater/defroster with the unit on the right...


Here is a pic of the dash heater "rough-in"


Here is the dash heater now; it is tucked behind the wood frame in the middle with some black metal mesh covering it
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Old 11-11-2019, 11:35 AM   #12
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@Bon Voyage, I have a bookmark of a place that sells 50 foot rolls of 1 inch heater hose for very slightly over $50 per roll. The problem is that I have many bookmarks in many folders, and I'm still looking. I did originally get that link from a posting on this forum, though.

@ComfortEagle, thanks very much for the links to those heaters. The problem with my exisiting heaters is that they're pretty beatup and ugly, and I have no idea how long the motors will last. Now, though, I am starting a bookmark folder about heaters and those 2 will be the first in the new folder.
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Old 11-11-2019, 11:52 AM   #13
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I still have not found the link I was looking for, but I did find another post on this forum from last year that had a link to a place that also sells 50 foot rolls of 1 inch heater hose at a reasonable price, $1.22 per foot in a 50 foot roll.

https://www.ryderfleetproducts.com/d...ce-p-u29-80319

The forum thread I got this link from is at: http://www.skoolie.net/forums/f13/bu...s-20092-2.html

There is at least one more place out there that sells this stuff at reasonable prices in 50 foot rolls, but I am still going through my folders of bookmarks.


[Edit] Even Amazon has 1 inch heater hose for just over $1.50 per foot in a 50 foot roll: https://www.amazon.com/HBD-Industrie...dp/B000BPVWAQ/


[Another edit] I still can't find the bookmark I was looking for. I think I deleted that folder because almost everything in there was pretty old.

But I did a web search, with DuckDuckGo, I hate Google spying on me, and came up with this, which I think may be the page I was looking for and the price just went up a bit: https://www.grainger.com/product/THE...er-Hose-45AT68
This one is $84.50 for a 50 foot roll. It's red and has a working pressure of 44 lbs.
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Old 11-11-2019, 03:33 PM   #14
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I salvaged about 50' of 1" hose when I deleted the heaters, no need to purchase more.
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Old 11-11-2019, 04:00 PM   #15
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I removed almost 80 feet so far, left a bit for later and it's not later enough yet, but I intend to keep throwing it all away as it comes out because it's almost 25 years old and as far as I am concerned that's pretty close to it's dependable life.

I only want to mess around with reconnecting the heaters once, so there's absolutely no question in my mind about whether I should pay for new hose or not. None at all.
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Old 11-16-2019, 05:10 PM   #16
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When I removed the rear heater in my short bus the front heater got a lot hotter. Maybe the rear heater was not shut off all the way and robbing heat from the front.
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Old 11-16-2019, 08:22 PM   #17
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What ever the case don't forget to consider overall fluid loss. you risk over heating your motor if you don't compensate for coolant loss.
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Old 11-17-2019, 12:06 AM   #18
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I connected my two heater lines together with steel pipe fittings and clamped them on.
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Old 11-17-2019, 06:34 AM   #19
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Yes, I’m worried about overheating because a slight pinging from the engine developed recently. After I removed the rear heater. The temperature gauge may be stuck.
How does one remove the air lock, air bubble? I should mention that on another bus I had a air lock and overheating after removing the rear heater. It relieved itself while I was driving.
Cooling systems can be tricky. If exhaust gas or air is getting into the coolant then the system can do weird things. I had a van that would blow the radiator hoses clean off causing almost total loss of coolant. I drove around with a 5 gallon jug of water just in case. Someone said the Chevrolet 305 Vortex had a faulty intake manifold gasket. Anyway the radiator hoses didn’t blow off after replacing the intake manifold gasket with a “improved gasket”.
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Old 11-17-2019, 12:16 PM   #20
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Okay i have a 95 Thomas rear engine 8.3 cummins. with the radiator on the side i'm going to buy/make louvor vanes for the radiator, and the same for an auxiliary tank to compensate the fluid loss. i found a bent 180 deg. 1 inch tube at work that redirected fluid back to the engine, so i don't need the pump anymore......But not so fast on getting rid of the pump because..... as for the front defrost i'll most likely T-off the maybe needing that pump to direct a 1/2 inch line to the defrost. since i'm already living in it i keep it warm anyway. Anybody got any rebuttal...please i'm open.
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