Wanted Information on Ex freelander/ rover webasto pre heaters

[DodgeRover]

I'm sure somebody has tried this, are they easy to repurpose as an auxiliary heater unit for another vehicle? I'm thinking it would be nice to turn it on go and have a cup of coffe and come back to a nice warm non iced up vehicle?

All advice offers of pre heater units appreciated

[dave21478]

Early TD4 engine Freelanders have them. Its a fairly compact unit that could easily be plumbed into something else with minimal hassles.

Its behind the front bumper, left hand corner. There is a wee exhaust pipe poking down vertically. It has a feed and return hose from the cooling system, power feed, temperature sensor behind the front lower grill and an electric dosing pump under the rear right wheelarch....find the right thing;...some cars have the engine fuelfilter and lift pump in the same wheelarch. the webasto pump is tiny, maybe 10-15cm long and 5 or 6 diameter.

 

Their idea is that under 5 degrees or so they light up when you start the engine to warm to coolant up faster. The TD4 is very heat-efficient and takes ages to warm up by itself. They have a wee electric water pump built in to help circulate the coolant faster. They can run on for a few minutes after engine switch off.

 

I fitted a remote into mine using a cheap Maplins kit allowing me to switch it on while I ate toast in the kitchen. It would warm up the coolant and the cabin for me by the time I was ready to go. It only needs a 12v feed into the right wire on its plug to make it switch on, and I used a relay to turn the cabin heater fan on at the same time to blow the warmed air over the screen and interior to defrost and warm it up.. The Maplins kit I used had a variable timer for 1, 5, 10, 15 etc minutes. iirc I set it to 20 minutes, so if I didnt go out to the car it would shut down after 20 minutes to prevent it running the battery flat. I assume it has an internal over-heat protection but dont know for certain.

 

If I break the Freelander I will definitely remove it for use in another vehicle. I saw one guy had it fitted into some pez engined car with a wee reserve tank in the boot he filled with red diesel just for the heater.

 

Problems - they are all getting old now and many dont work. Apparently opening it up and cleaning the injector nozzle and glow plug can help a lot of them. There is apparently a good diagnostic guide on one of the rover forums (they are also fitted to some diesel  R75/ZT) for electronic problems and some dude who offers a repair service for failed circuit boards. Someone on a landrover forum found a diagnostic thing on ebay that plugs into a laptop USB and can faultfind....dunno how he got on with it.
The wee fuel pump in the rear arch gets all the roadshit sprayed on it so they often resemble a blob of rust. Its not a normal rotary pump, its a solenoid piston that makes a rythmic clicking noise and squirts a small amount with each pump. Quite expensive to buy a new pump....fifty quid or so seems to ring a bell.

 

Later cars ditched the webasto and used some cryptic electric heating system that sucks about a million amps and can only work with the engine running.

[twosmoke300]

Interesting ! I took one for a Saab 9-3 I scrapped as it may be useful one day but prob never use it !

[DodgeRover]

Interesting ! I took one for a Saab 9-3 I scrapped as it may be useful one day but prob never use it !

Are they the same unit then? Have seen a rover one but it's minus the fuel pump.

[michael1703]

I think I've seen them on galaxys too

[3VOM]

I think a few motorhome owners have these, the name Erbspacer or Ebspacer comes to mind. They are "cab heaters" for trucks, running off diesel IIRC.

[garethj]

Eberspacher

[Guest Hooli]

Also quite common on boats I believe.

[michael1703]

Eberspachers are normally £300 though,if you can get something off a scrap car that will do a similar job then jobsa goodun

[andy18s]

Disco 3 have the same set up,and there's loads getting to the breaker stage now the engine/gearbox or electrics give up...

[AMC Rebel]

Eberspachers are very different from the webasto pre-heaters.

 

Eberspachers are diesel or petrol burning space heaters.

 

The Webasto things are plumbed into the vehicle cooling system to warm it up more quickly on diesels.

 

A Webasto pre-heater was fitted to Rover 75s (the diesel ones).  Standard at first and later as an option.  There are many mods out there for those - Rover offered a remote switch on and a timer so you could warm the car up before setting out - some beards on the Rover forum have worked out a way to use your mobile to turn them on and off (by sending a text I think).  One bloke has run a separate fuel feed for his  so he can run it from a can of red diesel in the boot.

 

My disco 3 has one and the disco3 forums have some mods and troubleshooting for them.

 

Another option is an electric version - you have to be near a plug for this of course -

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Engine-Coolant-PreHeater-240v-2-2kw-fits-Land-Rover-4x4-Kit-Car-etc/191475121928?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D38661%26meid%3Dad0f1c36b92d41208e2132dbc0cd429c%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D350999337022

[DodgeRover]

Outbid on a nice petrol Eberspacher water heater on ebay, looks like an ex rover one and a little tank of cherry is the way forwards. Do they all smoke like the Marlbro man or is that just on start up

[AMC Rebel]

They all smoke a bit - some more than others - the one on my D3 isn't too bad, the one on my old Jag X350 was like Alex Higgins.

 

Oh and to add to/correct my (as usual) ignorant comments above - Eberspacher and Webasto seem to be the same outfit these days.

 

Just been reading up on the D3 and Rover forums - seems the Rover/MG one is the one to have as they can be controlled using 12v - seemingly some of the LR ones need various flavours of K-bus/canbus.

[AMC Rebel]

Thinking about this - I wonder if they would run on veg?

[DodgeRover]

Probably run on a kero/ veg/ petrol mix or a veg/ cross fuel mix, might even be less smoky or it might just convince the neighbours you have fry up every morning

[forddeliveryboy]

No, defintely not on veg even in a mix, they don't even like biodiesel apparently. Higher ignition temperature will be a problem, I'm guessing. They're best run on kerosene. Since it's a ballache and not always cheap to repair and service them, I wouldn't try to experiment too much especially given the small amount they use.