Aux Heater ?

[Guest Hankinson]

I made some progress too with my booster heater yesterday. I dropped the heater on its hoses and unscrewed _all_ torx screws. The last 3 torx allowed me to pull out the 14 cm long burner that sits in the main body of the heater.

 

And to my amazement...

 

I found the compartment in which the burner sits completely 100% full of greasy-dieselly-soot (well, okay, 90%). The compartment is the inside of the body of the heater which is itself a heat exchanger. The compartment has fins (to aid heat tranfer). All fins were gummed up.

 

See picture to get a feel for the amount of soot - the mound on the newspaper is about 2 cm high.

 

The hot exhaust gas would have a very hard time getting though the soot to the exit port. This surely must explain the incomplete combustion and hence clouds of grey smoke.

 

I knackered one of the asbestos (?) gaskets in the process, so when I re-assembled it, I left it electrically unplugged and hence it won't run at all for time being. I don't fancy running it without gasket - the hot gas will find a leak path past the aluminium body and may damage the alu. Need to get new gasket from the local dealer (there is one over here in Holland).

 

Lesson learned; Consider checking residual soot in the heater. I reckon the design is poor if these things are meant to burn without servicing/cleaning. Any thoughts anyone?

[Guest Hankinson]

The pic...

[galaxychap]

i see this post has had 6608 views is that a record

[big_kev]

Are these the glow plugs ?

 

Ebay item no. 4591068319

 

Seem cheap at less than a tenner including postage.

[Masked Marauder]

Are these the glow plugs ?

 

Ebay item no. 4591068319

 

Seem cheap at less than a tenner including postage.

No, thats the ones for the engine.

[Ivor_E_Tower]

i see this post has had 6608 views is that a record

No, a record is a black piece of plastic with a small hole in the middle, and a long spiral groove on each side leading from the outside to the centre. It preceded these new-fangled CDs that some people seem so keen to play in their cars.

[GSMGuy]

i see this post has had 6608 views is that a record

No, a record is a black piece of plastic with a small hole in the middle, and a long spiral groove on each side leading from the outside to the centre. It preceded these new-fangled CDs that some people seem so keen to play in their cars.

ROFLMFO!!!!

 

 

Mike

[greg_68]

Ivor, you just wait until this new fangled mp3 player thing takes off, it'll blow your mind to smithereens. It doesn't even have a disc like the record or cd.

 

You better sit down before viewing one.

[GSMGuy]

I was in the loft last year, and dug out my "Brothers in Arms" on Vinyl, my 10 year old was amazed as she had never seen a vinyl album!

 

Mike

[tim-spam]

The excessive amount of black gunge may be due to an over-rich fuel to air ratio. I wonder if the metering pump is adjustable in any way?

[Masked Marauder]

Well I think the problem has arisen from when it was run on bio-fuel as it is not designed to run in an open flame combustion environment. That would cause the inital gumming up, and then the problem would just get worse from there.

[tim-spam]

That's interesting. I would guess that bio-diesel will be getting more popular over the next few years, and my car's handbook states that bio-diesel is a suitable fuel for the TDI engine. If bio-diesel does indeed cause problems in open flame burners, this may require the heater units to be regularly cleaned. After all, it appears that a 'viscious circle' is a distinct possibility. In other words, the deposits in the heater reduce the airflow, which in turn richens the mixture and increases the rate of deposition, smoke, etc, until the unit fails to light. If and when my car's heater starts to smoke, I think it will probably be a good idea to replace the glow plug and clean the combustion chamber as a matter of course.

[widu13]

On my motorhome, I had the same sized burner (5Kw) from the same maunfacturer, which heated both air and water. This required servicing every year. It was Eberspacher themselves that stated it should be serviced each year, so I wonder what's going on with the VAG and Fraud?

[Bigjeeze]

On my motorhome, I had the same sized burner (5Kw) from the same maunfacturer, which heated both air and water. This required servicing every year. It was Eberspacher themselves that stated it should be serviced each year, so I wonder what's going on with the VAG and Fraud?

 

 

If that's true then we all have a problem don't we?

 

My wife's car is a 1997 with 130K on the clock - the Aux heater works fine and doesn't smoke or sod a bout at all.

 

My motors a 2001 - done around 85K miles and so far has had a new glow plug.

 

What would a service do then ?

 

:o

[widu13]

On my motorhome, I had the same sized burner (5Kw) from the same maunfacturer, which heated both air and water. This required servicing every year. It was Eberspacher themselves that stated it should be serviced each year, so I wonder what's going on with the VAG and Fraud?

 

 

If that's true then we all have a problem don't we?

 

My wife's car is a 1997 with 130K on the clock - the Aux heater works fine and doesn't smoke or sod a bout at all.

 

My motors a 2001 - done around 85K miles and so far has had a new glow plug.

 

What would a service do then ?

 

:o

I would imagine that your engine could go 85k w/o a service, but you wouldn't run that without a service would you? A glow plug is a service item. A clear out of all the crap as above would help!

 

And don't shoot the messenger!

[Guest Hankinson]

Eberspacher;

I'm going to try and 'make some enquiries' with the manufacturer's agent Eberspacher here in sunny Holland and see what they say about servicing (i.e. gunge cleaning). I'll keep you posted.

 

Re. Biodiesel;

I probably ran only 1 or 2 tanks with bio diesel - the rest of the time has been with good ol' regular diesel.

 

De-gunge-ing;

If any of you have changed out the glow plug in the past then it would be a doddle to de-gunge the greasy soot. It was just like soft grease in my case and gets everywhere. I had plenty of rags and newspapers to hand. After gently getting the worst out with a screwdriver I poured in a little petrol and then with my wife's toothbrush managed to get the aluminimium gleaming. Be sure you have a new gasket ready before re-assembling [the gasket is needed between the burner and the body]. Oh, and a new toothbrush.

 

I forgot to mention the booster exhaust. I haven't cleaned that yet but I imagine it will be chockablock too.

[nottelmann]

Hi,

 

  I posted a message on another thread about the aux heater - about it producing clouds of smoke - and Ford saying it needed a new one "the seals had gone" - that'll be

[Guest Hankinson]

> I'm going to try and 'make some enquiries' with the manufacturer's

> agent Eberspacher here in sunny Holland and see what they say

> about servicing (i.e. gunge cleaning). I'll keep you posted

 

Got round to phoning. I asked them about a gasket set (remember: the booster is easy to clean yourself but you'll need 2 replacement gaskets). They were very helpful with directing me to a local place that does gasket sets for Eberspacher. Seemed like I was ordering a Big Mac. Will call this other place tomorrow and hopefully get them in my sweaty paws soon. Need to get this all sorted before skiing.

 

Does anyone know what solvent best dissolves diesel gunge/soot? I need to flush the small booster exhaust/silencer.

[seatkid]

Does anyone know what solvent best dissolves diesel gunge/soot? I need to flush the small booster exhaust/silencer.

Petrol - you knew it was useful for something.... :D

 

(Just kidding VR6....) :D :D

[Guest vr6galaxy]

:D I was going to say caustic soda! use to use it to decoke the exhausts on my motor bikes :D

[Rallim]

Harumph! After successful re-enabling of my aux heater in October (and noticing straight off how much difference it makes when it works). I get a phone call from the wife this morning saying the car was enveloped in smoke, and much to her and her friends amusement they had a tap on the window (a hand appeared through the fog! ) by guy from a nearby office asking if the car was on fire and were they allright. Apparently it continued throughout the day, and it was very 'embarrassing' in traffic.

 

Going by the rest of this thread I think I will have to bite the bullet and buy and new glow plug and give it a good clean out... nice time of year, I should have been proactive! :D It had been working so well.....

 

Gordon.

[Guest Hankinson]

Been there too - in that embarassing smoke. It's a nice way to meet people in a strange city. Ha ha.

 

Good luck Gordon. Use a needle to clean out the torx head machine screws and don't let the torx tool jump out of the head. Apply plenty of downward force whilst turning. Get a gasket set if you decide to split the unit to get at the burner for cleaning/de-gunging. I'm running (after re-assembly) with the elec cable disconnected until my gasket set arrvies in the post. On Sat. hope to have the new ones in and let it run.

 

Tell us how you got on ... and especially how much gunge (soot) you came across in the burner compartment. A few folks are wondering about the de-gunging topic.

 

Alan

[Guest Turbo]

Well this is all very interesting. My 1999 Galaxy aux. air heater comes into action at +3 or less but after my drive to work which is 16 miles the system is still running. Does this mean that the glow plug isn`t working properly - maybe not at all !

[Masked Marauder]

Well this is all very interesting. My 1999 Galaxy aux. air heater comes into action at +3 or less but after my drive to work which is 16 miles the system is still running. Does this mean that the glow plug isn`t working properly - maybe not at all !

If the glow plug was not working the heater would not run at all.

 

The early TDis the heater came on a sub 4 degrees, so that is fine too.

 

The heater has two heat output settings, once the engine is over 70 deg or so it goes onto low output. If I have my blowers going full blast on full hot the engine never gets fully hot.

[Ogben Schmutzel]

Similar to MM, in cold weather and with the front and rear (in cab) heater blowers working the effect seems to be that the coolant really struggles to reach temperature. So its no surprise at all that the unit is still working after 16 miles.

 

In fact in really cold weather, from what others have said here and my own experience I reckon that it is quite possible that if you are not putting a lot of load on the engine that after many more miles than that the unit could switch BACK ON!!

 

It follows therefore that it could appear to still be running after many more miles than 16, but in fact in had not been running continuously.

 

HTH.

Oggy.