Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atomic Ass
Interesting thought, only issues I see are plugging in at work, and that engine wrap to keep the wind off the engine... The latter I've been too lazy to do, the former I will check on tonight when I go to work, see if there is a plug outside. 
Now the question is, will ~40W, (the output of a soldering iron I can recycle for the purpose), be too much, or too little, and what might be a good conductive paste for such a purpose? I'd think the gunk they use for mounting cooling blocks to processors, but I don't know if the stuff would be too expensive or not. |
AA,
I don't think 40W would be near enough but I've got just the thing for your block heater!
I remembered a heater element I had salvaged/saved from a coffee maker so I dug it out. It's a 110vac 400W heater with a 180-degree thermal cutout switch. This should work great if protected from the elements, perhaps wrapped in fiberglass and in a light aluminum box about 6"x7"x3"? (
or maybe incorporated into the insulated shell I mention at bottom of this note) It's a "U"-shaped aluminum pressing with heater parallel to a 10mm OD tube and thermal cutout in center. Here is a picture of it:
You could make two Tees to insert into your existing radiator tubes with 10mm off-shoots you might be able to get the heater to thermo-siphon. I suspect this is how your bike circulates water already, is it not? The only way a thermo-siphon works is the cool tap must be lower than the hot tap, spaced wide enough to allow natural thermal flow. If this sounds like it might be worth exploring, I could mail it to you for just cost of shipping from 97080. Parcel post should be pretty cheap. Without packaging, it weighs just 5.4 ounces. Let me know.
The only thing I can say about a thermal wrap for your engine is: it should be something that can stay on the bike. Something that doesn't have to be fiddled with every time you use the bike. I'm thinking a thin aluminum shell with a can of that "insulfoam" expanding foam sprayed in between shell and engine. That should be permanent enough to withstand weather, wind, etc.
tinkerbill