Removing heaters and hoses on RE bus, how to rig up defroster??

[Brasquatch]

Well, the title says it all. Does anyone have any experience with removing the coolant lines and heaters from a rear engine bus? I plan to have a propane furnace for heat while on the road but need to figure out how to get the defroster running.

I thought about a 12v heater somehow rigged into the box where the heater core would be, or possibly even a lower wattage 120v heater running off of a gen or the alternator.

Any thoughts?

Thanks guys!

 

[Brasquatch]

Maybe even if I need to keep the lines just remove the rear heater and reroute the coolant lines underneath?

 

[Robin97396]

Yeah, many of us remove the rear heater. It's not much use most of the time unless you're planning a trip to Alaska. You can loop the heater hoses where they are or you can loop them near the back of the engine. Many people relocate the heater to the passenger or dining area of the bus.

As people have mentioned previously, having the heaters on full can help the radiator to dissipate heat on a hot day under load.

 

[Brasquatch]

Well it wouldnt just be the rear heater, it would be driver heat and defrost as well as its a rear engine bus, so my front heat is basically like the rear heater in a conventional.

I think the plan is to ditch it all together and use 12v defroster

 

[Brasquatch]

I lucked out we have valves too so no looping necessary

 

[family wagon]

Having no experience with it, my gut feel is that no reasonably-sized electric heater is going to do a good job of defrosting the front windows. Seems like I saw a name plate indicating 40,000 BTU on the stairwell heater in my bus.... that's 11.7 kW/h if it were derived from electric power. The defrost heater(s) are probably smaller -- but even if they're one tenth the size, it'd still be 1 kW/h of electric power. That's about 100 amps at 12 volts. Heated coolant from the engine would be much simpler to manage.

You can build a shunt to re-connect the coolant lines after removing the heaters through the body. The heaters are built with copper pipe; if you're handy with (or willing to learn) soldering copper plumbing you could pick up a few elbows and some pipe (or regular elbow and a street elbow) to make a U-shaped shunt. Some of us have used steel barbed irrigation fittings instead: the metal fittings for the black polyethylene tubing work well (not "funny pipe" which is sized differently). I think it was 3/4" size I used for mine. Depending on whether the existing hoses come up through the floor or run along the surface of the floor, you may be able to trim the hose and use straight couplings or may have to use a U-bend instead.

 

[Robin97396]

You must live in a warm area. The need for defrosters is high in the area I'm in. That's an interesting way to look at heating your defrost system. That would be a pretty big power drain for 15 or 20 minutes.

I'll be interested in seeing how it turns out. Make a new idea work.

 

[Brasquatch]

Thanks for the input guys.

I'm actually in northeast Pennsylvania, but we don't plan to stay here with it when done, we will take off to warmer climate, but I want defrost. As every year passes I hate the cold more and more. We will be back summers always but after the 30" we got two weeks ago, we're done!

I'm building it in my head, I can get a 750 watt electric heater for $7 from ballsmart and dismantle it and build/weld up some brackets to use it right in the defroster box, with the existing bus fan, running from an inverter or alt.
They also sell some 200watt 12v defroster heaters that don't look half bad. One for each side may do it.
If all else fails, fire up the 60k BTU torpedo for a few minutes.

 

[Brasquatch]

I just really know my luck, and I WILL sprout a leak in those lines, ruining things and making a **** of a mess and lot of work. It would take a while to get that stink out too. I couldn't picture spilling gallons of that crap in my living room, THE HORROR!

 

[Robin97396]

My hoses run underneath my floor. I hope you try that 600 watt heater with your dash fans before you make it permanent.

 

[EastCoastCB]

Imagine its cold, and you want to move your bus. You reach for the heat/defrost only to discover someone's replaced it with a computer. The horror! lol

 

[jctrembly]

I would consider keeping the heater, run the lines under the bus if needed. I may do that myself. We have the same type of bus and once your in a cool area driving 700w heat 120v/240v won't do much for a windshield. Part of the reason will be the fresh air coming into the bus needs to be heated. If you try to seal the bus up tight going do the road humidity will be the Problem.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Brasquatch]

Again, thanks for all the replies guys! I may just get a new roll of rubber lines and run them underneath, garshh idunno wtf to do sometimes

 

[Robin97396]

That's my theory. New hoses and clamps. I like to start throwing out the 20 year old rubber pieces right away. I know that's a lot of hose for you. It's over 50' in my medium size bus, but it does throw out the heat when you need it.

 

[boojiewoojie]

Keep the heat. Run the hoses outside the living area. These RE buses like to run hot and it's nice that you can crank the heaters to help cool the engine.