Step one. Bought the van.
Hello Everybody, First post. I camp a lot in tents but after spending three days straight in a tent in the rain at Dolly Sods I swore I'd make a change. Here it is. Bought it Wednesday. Dro...
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Webasto heater install continued:
With the heater and fuel pump installed and approved it's time to fire it up. The Kwik-E-Mart up the road has a kerosene pump. The plan was to use kerosene to keep down coking inside the heater that can happen with diesel fuel. One slight problem with this plan. The kerosene pump is set up with a very short hose.
They obviously don't want it used to fuel vehicles. I had to get the van as close as possible to the pump before the nozzle would reach the fuel inlet. And while I was using the pump one of the cashiers came outside to see what I was doing.
This was the first time since it was installed in the van that the gas tank had been filled. I hadn't added a separate vent line hoping that if I just filled it slowly enough there wouldn't be fuel blow-back. I'm happy to report that it fills just fine if I keep fuel nozzle on the first notch. As a test I opened up the nozzle all the way. I won't be doing that again.
Get the van back home and wire up the heater to two 6 volt batteries (in series - 12v).
Start it up.
I'd like to say it started right away but not so lucky. The fan starts then you can hear the clicking from the fuel pump. After awhile when it doesn't start properly the heater will shut down and the light on the controller will start flashing. The number of flashes indicate an error code. To clear the code you remove power to the unit. By removing the fuel line on the outlet side of the pump and starting the heater it was obvious no fuel was getting through.
I had some help figuring that out.
I double and triple checked all the fuel line connections and they were tight. I'd bought a used second fuel pump on ebay, just in case. So I hooked up the second pump and got the same results. Next up I taped a clear plastic tube to the fuel line and started a siphon.
If you have to ask why I've attached a clear tube then it means you've never siphoned gas by mouth before.
Once I got kerosene to this side of the van and hooked everything up I found the problem. It's where the plastic fuel line slides into the rubber hose fitting on the inlet side of the fuel filter. I had the screw clamp so tight the fuel line couldn't be pulled from the hose but kerosene would still seep out. When the pump was running air must have been getting in through the fitting preventing the pump from drawing. To get a good seal I had to tighten on the screw clamps right up to the point where it felt that they would fail.
Since I had both fuel pumps out I decided to check them against each other by measuring their output. Both pumps are the same. 45 "clicks" gives you approximately 3cc's of fuel.
1 click =~ 1/15 cc
1 gal =~ 3 785 cc
1 click =~ 1.76e -5 gal
1 gal kerosene = $3.50 (locally)
1 click =~ $0.00006
Use a jackstand to temporarily hold the flexible exhaust hose in place. Start up the heater.
With the fuel problems worked out it ran just fine. Here's the
Youtube video of the heater running.
continued -
With the heater and fuel pump installed and approved it's time to fire it up. The Kwik-E-Mart up the road has a kerosene pump. The plan was to use kerosene to keep down coking inside the heater that can happen with diesel fuel. One slight problem with this plan. The kerosene pump is set up with a very short hose.
They obviously don't want it used to fuel vehicles. I had to get the van as close as possible to the pump before the nozzle would reach the fuel inlet. And while I was using the pump one of the cashiers came outside to see what I was doing.
This was the first time since it was installed in the van that the gas tank had been filled. I hadn't added a separate vent line hoping that if I just filled it slowly enough there wouldn't be fuel blow-back. I'm happy to report that it fills just fine if I keep fuel nozzle on the first notch. As a test I opened up the nozzle all the way. I won't be doing that again.
Get the van back home and wire up the heater to two 6 volt batteries (in series - 12v).
Start it up.
I'd like to say it started right away but not so lucky. The fan starts then you can hear the clicking from the fuel pump. After awhile when it doesn't start properly the heater will shut down and the light on the controller will start flashing. The number of flashes indicate an error code. To clear the code you remove power to the unit. By removing the fuel line on the outlet side of the pump and starting the heater it was obvious no fuel was getting through.
I had some help figuring that out.
I double and triple checked all the fuel line connections and they were tight. I'd bought a used second fuel pump on ebay, just in case. So I hooked up the second pump and got the same results. Next up I taped a clear plastic tube to the fuel line and started a siphon.
If you have to ask why I've attached a clear tube then it means you've never siphoned gas by mouth before.
Once I got kerosene to this side of the van and hooked everything up I found the problem. It's where the plastic fuel line slides into the rubber hose fitting on the inlet side of the fuel filter. I had the screw clamp so tight the fuel line couldn't be pulled from the hose but kerosene would still seep out. When the pump was running air must have been getting in through the fitting preventing the pump from drawing. To get a good seal I had to tighten on the screw clamps right up to the point where it felt that they would fail.
Since I had both fuel pumps out I decided to check them against each other by measuring their output. Both pumps are the same. 45 "clicks" gives you approximately 3cc's of fuel.
1 click =~ 1/15 cc
1 gal =~ 3 785 cc
1 click =~ 1.76e -5 gal
1 gal kerosene = $3.50 (locally)
1 click =~ $0.00006
Use a jackstand to temporarily hold the flexible exhaust hose in place. Start up the heater.
With the fuel problems worked out it ran just fine. Here's the
Youtube video of the heater running.
continued -
