Where's the Blower?

[Richard_W]

My heater is fine, not sure what dacarter's heater brand is ...
BTW, I wonder how he is doing in his search for heater location.

[dacarter]

Thanks all, I have sent a message to Larson asking about access, and today I will open an access panel I found yesterday under the matress of the aft berth. My unit says Heater Craft on the control panel and does have ducts, some quite long. There is an outlet mid deck and on the dash, I guess for use if you have the deck fully enclosed, and one or two outlets in the cabin. Not sure where the inlet is.

[dacarter]

Well, I found it, but it wasn’t easy.

Nothing under the first panel in the aft berth but hoses leading to the heater, and a huge gas tank.


Nothing under the second panel except the hoses


Finally, under the 3rd very difficult to remove panel, I found the heater


It was pretty obvious what the problem was after seeing it. There’s a water line in the compartment so the blower motor which is on the bottom of the unit had been under water and is locked up.


This area seems to be water tight except for a hole going forward into a compartment under the step where the shower sump pump is and another bilge pump. I can’t see how water would get into this area unless maybe the hoses to the heater are leaking or the heater radiator is leaking. I guess I’ll hook a hose up, run the engine and see if there’s any dripping. There was some water under the step when I bought the boat. Looks like a replacement blower is about $125. I'll probably order it tomorrow after verifying the radiator isn't leaking. If it is leaking, I can replace the entire heater for about $250.

Here's the control for the heater.


One more detail. There doesn't seem to be any good air inlet to the closed compartment that the heater sits in, so looks like a pretty bad design. Might have to add a grill somewhere.

[DeepFrz]

A radiator shop should be able to pressure test the heat exchanger to see if is leaking. From the looks of the motor it was the heat exchanger or one of the hoses that was leaking. What a mess...

[Richard_W]

Originally Posted by dacarter

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...

One more detail. There doesn't seem to be any good air inlet to the closed compartment that the heater sits in, so looks like a pretty bad design. Might have to add a grill somewhere.

There should be no (standing?) water in this compartment. If the heater and its connections are okay, then the drain hose thru bulkhead looks suspect ... the smudged silicon around the hole always gives me shivers. What about the wires ... do they go thru as well?

That reinforced hose can hardly be sealed due to corrugation and hose flexibility. If there is water (sump area, bilge, etc) on the other side, this needs a sealed thru bulkhead fitting with hoses connected on both ends/sides. Find out what's on the other side.

Agree with the lack of air inlet. At best it is sucking some bilge air. Not an easy location to get some good air in ... maybe in the wall right above?

At least you found it so you can fix it.

[DeepFrz]

There are two plenum hoses. One could be an intake hose, one an output. Just guessing.

[Richard_W]

Looking again at the picture I've quoted above ... this is not a hose, it is a wire harness. I am not sure what I am looking at ... and from what direction. Scratch everything I said above ... 8)

[dacarter]

Yeah, those are wires going forward through a wall into another sump under the step. In this compartment there is a bilge pump.

I left out one important detail on this boat, it has a step hull, so water in the hull, in front of the step cannot flow back to the back of the boat. This may be why there was standing water.

[GPSocal]

dacarter

Glad you found the blower. I saw a note on the Heater Craft website about a mounting in the dash area. If yours is down in the bilge, you have already experienced the water problem. A second and more dangerous one would be carbon monoxide poisoning from fumes intruding into that little compartment or thru a defective air intake/discharge hose.

If you are going to leave the heater unit where it is, I would replace both the intake and exhaust ducts and make sure the ducts are well sealed to the heater box fittings..

[Cheechako]

Just an FYI, if you are handy at assessing (sp?) things, Grainger may have the heater fan cheaper. Heater Craft buys it from somewhere....often they are not a custom design on these type of things. The similar heater on my boat is just under the little ladder/steps going into the cabin... easy to see and get at.

[dacarter]

I had an extra bilge blower on the shelf, so I decided to go cheap on this repair. After a trip to Home Depot, I had PVC duct work all connected up to the gutted blower (motor and fans removed). I’ll lose the 3 speed control, but can always put a variable resistor on the dash later if needed.

Here’s the old blower and motor… looks like the work of salt water.





And the new setup (solo cups glued into the center section to seal it off.



And installed…



The airflow is really good, but after idling for 15-20 minutes, I didn’t really get any hot air. The hot water goes through the water heater first, and it’s full of 40 degree water right now, so probably need to run it longer and at higher RPM to get hot water to the heater. I know that the boat does product hot water in the water heater after an hour or so, so I know the water flow to the water heater, then to the heater, then back to the engine is working.

After digging further into the area, I noticed there is an open area where the ducts are routed that provides inlet air from the dash area, so no need to add a vent.

Also no leaks from the heater.

Anyway, $30 fix instead of $130, so I’m happy.

[GPSocal]

Originally Posted by dacarter

I had an extra bilge blower on the shelf, so I decided to go cheap on this repair. After a trip to Home Depot, I had PVC duct work all connected up to the gutted blower (motor and fans removed). I’ll lose the 3 speed control, but can always put a variable resistor on the dash later if needed.

Here’s the old blower and motor… looks like the work of salt water.

And the new setup (solo cups glued into the center section to seal it off.

And installed…

The airflow is really good, but after idling for 15-20 minutes, I didn’t really get any hot air. The hot water goes through the water heater first, and it’s full of 40 degree water right now, so probably need to run it longer and at higher RPM to get hot water to the heater. I know that the boat does product hot water in the water heater after an hour or so, so I know the water flow to the water heater, then to the heater, then back to the engine is working.

After digging further into the area, I noticed there is an open area where the ducts are routed that provides inlet air from the dash area, so no need to add a vent.

Also no leaks from the heater.

Anyway, $30 fix instead of $130, so I’m happy.

Dacarter
Just in time for winter. Your engine needs to be at or near operating temperature to get much heat out of the unit. With the long hose run from the engine to the heater box, a lot of heat energy is lost so it will take longer at idle speed to heat up.

[DeepFrz]

Are the hoses getting hot? How about the engine heat? It seems like even at idle after 20 mins. you should be getting heat. Although a better test would be to engage the transmission and run the engine about 1,200 - 1,300 and check the hoses for heat.

[Cheechako]

nice conversion! for some reason my heater like that starts hot and gets cold after about 5 mins of blowing air... I guess it cools the engine too much or there's not enough flow ... one of the two...

[Richard_W]

I wondered about your heater controls and this might explain why the heater does not get warm or cools down when fans are on.

The full kit from Heater Craft includes heater/exchanger/fan, air hoses with sleeves/vents, air intake grills, heater control, AND water circulation pump and switch that helps to circulate the hot engine water. The pressure difference generated by engine pump alone might not be enough to push enough hot water, or water flow stalls altogether when hoses are long enough. With the water pump on, the air coming from heater vents is hot.

The install on my boat includes the heater, the pump, and relevant controls ... see below: