Chinese diesel heater questions

[siggebig]

That too. ?

Hey, so i need to have the exhaust going up and out, but i cant find anything anywhere on how to have that set up the best way, you have any experience with mounting it up? Or ideas ? Having the muffler directly after the heater feels kinda odd, should i avoid it? Heres how im thinking
Maybe I have it like this but i add some straight pipe before the muffler.. hmmm

 

[Rednecktek]

Hey, so i need to have the exhaust going up and out, but i cant find anything anywhere on how to have that set up the best way, you have any experience with mounting it up? Or ideas ? Having the muffler directly after the heater feels kinda odd, should i avoid it? Heres how im thinkingView attachment 144414
Maybe I have it like this but i add some straight pipe before the muffler.. hmmm

If you're mounting the heater sideways you just need a short piece of pipe or pipe expander to connect the muffler directly to the exhaust port (they're the same size so you can't just slip the muffler on) on the heater. That will provide that drip hole a place to do its job. From there you can run it up and out. You might want to see if you can find some 90deg elbows to connect the pipe to the muffler to go up straighter and get as much loop out as possible.

Also make sure the glow plug is up when you mount it sideways.

 

[siggebig]

Also make sure the glow plug is up when you mount it sideways.

Does it have to? It wont be up if i go with this idea. Maybe its just better to mount it standard then if mounting it sideways make problems,, just that the air outlet is at a terrible place with the alternative mounting place.

EDIT: I understand it will leak fuel. Then i'll have to figure something else out. Thanks anyways ?

 

[Rednecktek]

Nope, gotta have that glow plug facing up or it's not going to run right, you'll flood out your aspirator screen and could potentially catch fire.

Ducting becomes a problem solve for this.

 

[Johno1066]

Aproblem I found on my heater smoking badly on start and eventually failing due to carboning up the combustion chamber was the fact the the fuel pump valve did not seat well and as the diesel tank was lower that the heater the fuel slowly emptied the fuel line. So when you had the unit off for a couple of days and then started it again the glow plug had already cooled some by the time the diesel got there and it just smoked until you shut it down. I found this when shining a light on the fuel line and saw the fuel level way down, so when I start now I have to prime until the fuel gets to the metal fuel inlet and have never had a problem again. Guess I should get another pump sometime.

 

[Rednecktek]

Aproblem I found on my heater smoking badly on start and eventually failing due to carboning up the combustion chamber was the fact the the fuel pump valve did not seat well and as the diesel tank was lower that the heater the fuel slowly emptied the fuel line. So when you had the unit off for a couple of days and then started it again the glow plug had already cooled some by the time the diesel got there and it just smoked until you shut it down. I found this when shining a light on the fuel line and saw the fuel level way down, so when I start now I have to prime until the fuel gets to the metal fuel inlet and have never had a problem again. Guess I should get another pump sometime.

Your pump will leak back very slowly if it's not tight. If you've got a long fuel run it just needs to be primed. There's a controller button push for that and it's pretty easy.

If it's draining dry in a couple days though it sounds like you've got a loose joint or clamp.

Good practice is to ramp it up to max for 10min right before you shut it down.

 

[Johno1066]

There is no leak in the fuel line so it definitely leaks back slowly through the pump, with instalations where the fuel line is not visible that empty fuel line would not be seen and with the normal start when the glow plug heats up, the pump may not get the diesel to the glow plug before it cools down some and thereby you get a very smoky start that plugs up the screen pretty quickly.

 

[Rednecktek]

It's just suprising to hear yours is leaking back that fast. I've come back 7 months later and still seen fuel half way up the line at my cabin. It's suprising is all.

I don't use the pre-builts, only the kits where I can stick all the things where I want them.

 

[Johno1066]

Mine is also a kit, but when I first put it together it worked for a little while and then started the smoking on start story, so I stripped it down cleaned it all out put in a new screen and also increased the size of the cables as it appeared to only draw 7 or 8 amps on starting and thought perhaps volt drop was causing the glow plug to not get hot enough. Primed the system and started straight up. After a few days of warmer weather I came to start it again and it started smaking all over again, so shut it down. Next time I tried to start it one evening I was using a flashlight to check it out and found the diesel about 2 feet down from the unit, hit the prime buttons until the diesel started to go into the metal fuel pipe then started and have been doing this ever since. As it has warmed up with spring now probably wont start it again until late fall.

 

[Rednecktek]

increased the size of the cables as it appeared to only draw 7 or 8 amps on starting and thought perhaps volt drop was causing the glow plug to not get hot enough.

There's a culprit, it should be drawing 11-12a when first firing up between the fan, pump, and glow plug.

 

[camelCase]

Have you tried running with the fuel cap slightly loose? I wonder if some vacuum in the tank draws the fuel back after the pump stops.

 

[Rednecktek]

Have you tried running with the fuel cap slightly loose? I wonder if some vacuum in the tank draws the fuel back after the pump stops.

The fuel caps should be vented from the factory but it's worth a quick look. It may just be a combination of gravity and a really long vertical height between the heater and tank.

 

[robineverest]

Ok, I play with these a lot so let me jump in.

The biggest issues I've ever had was from messing up my exhaust pipes and running it at low loads. If it's making visible smoke then you're not getting complete combustion and either it's not getting fuel correctly, or it's too cold. You'll want to get it up to full power right out the gate, it defaults to H3 on startup, so kick it up to H6 as soon as it starts lighting off. Once the heater gets to a clean burn the smoke should be invisible.

In the muffler is a small hole in the side, make sure that's the lowest point in the exhaust so condensate can drain. If that pipe can't drain it'll fill with water and choke out the system.

The other issue I've had was running at low loads for extended periods of time. I find that kicking it up to H6 (max) for 20 minutes or so every day really makes it run better and helps keep the burn chamber clean.

The clamps that come with the kit are adequate at best, replace those and it'll help the airflow.

The gaskets tend to stick, I ended up using red RTV on my cleanings before I could source replacement kits. Fortunately the gasket/screen kits are cheap and relatively easy to get on Amazon nowadays.

The atomizer screen and housing need to be cleaned as part of the service. There is a small hole in the screen housing that needs to be cleaned well and the screen needs to be seated all the way into its hole.

Skip the EGR for now until you get the system running and cleaned, then make sure the EGR allows good downward airflow to prevent condensate.

You can see my cleaning guide I wrote up a few years ago, feel free to keep a few copies. Feel free to ask me any more questions. I love these things. ? Keep in mind those directions were written before I had rebuild kits so disregard the excess RTV.

Another thing I did when I installed the 2nd one in my cabin was to get a 3rd unit, a small tool box, and built a tool kit with the tools for opening it up. If one clogs up it's a real quick exchange to a cleaned one and you can get the heat back on while the clogged one gets cleaned and put back in the toolbox. Buying the heaters directly from Vevor.com saves a good chunk of money.

Hello Rednecktech, I bought a 2kw diesel heater but the controller didn't work, and the supplier said there would be no replacements cos they had stopped making 2kw, so I bought another board and LCD controller for 3, 5 or 8 kw heater and I now have the heater working but with a lot t of smoke and fuel dripping out of the muffler. Is it possible that this is due to incorrect sizing? Pumping to much fuel?

 

[Rednecktek]

Hello Rednecktech, I bought a 2kw diesel heater but the controller didn't work, and the supplier said there would be no replacements cos they had stopped making 2kw, so I bought another board and LCD controller for 3, 5 or 8 kw heater and I now have the heater working but with a lot t of smoke and fuel dripping out of the muffler. Is it possible that this is due to incorrect sizing? Pumping to much fuel?

Yup, pumping too much fuel and not getting enough combustion. You can roll the dice on Alibabaxpress and try to find a listing for a 2Kw heater board and skip anything that says it works with 5Kw or 8Kw heaters.

Are you sure it's fuel out of the pipe? Most of the time when you're seeing smoke and drippage it's just cold and not getting enough combustion and the dripping is actually condensation (which is why that little hole in the muffler is so important) until the heater gets up to full speed and temperature. Check your exhaust flow and make sure it's as straight as possible with the drain hole in the muffler at the lowest possible point.

If you've got nothing but a straight pipe down and out and it's still not getting up to temp and full speed in about 10-15 minutes, you can try adjusting the fuel ratio on the controller you've got on there now. It's usually for fine tuning but if you've got a controller trying to get 5Kw of fuel into a 2Kw burn chamber, you can tune down the fuel rate on the controller. Always let the heater get fully warmed up before you start tweaking with the fuel rates and then it's small change, wait, small change, wait.

Here's a decent video of the process:

But like I said, start with making sure your exhaust pipe is straight as possible and there's nowhere water can condense and pool up. A puddle of water in the pipe will bring no end of smoking, choking, and really fouling up the burn chamber. Might be worth downloading a copy of my cleaning manual and taking a peek inside. Fortunately the gasket/screen sets for all 3 sizes are the same, it's just the length of the burn chamber that is the real difference.