Winterizing the White Whale
 

Well things are getting chilly here in Indiana this time of year, so I thought I's take some steps to see what I can do to help my warm up times. I've been using by block heater and an upper grill block, but have been wanting more.

So on Friday morning I added a full radiator block. I took a piece of sheeting and cut a piece big enough to cover the whole radiator and zip tied between the radiator and intercooler. It was about 40 deg F outside and even with leaving it plugged in all night and with the radiator block and the upper grill block, it still took around 10 miles for my coolant temp to get fully warmed (~200 F). Even so, I think the radiator block helped some--the last few days the temps were about the same and it was taking 11-12 mi to warm up. At this point I must stop and admit that, YES, my engine is extremely oversized for how I use it!

So today, I finally got an opportunity to install the oil pan heater that I bought a while back. Ahh yes, my idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon in October is lying under my truck sanding the paint off my oil pan (sad, but I'm serious). I just got em on there and they look pretty sweet. I got 2 150-watt pad heaters. I sanded the paint off, stuck em on, and sealed up the edges with some RTV. I put one each side of my oil pan sump. If people are interested I may take some pics and upload them too. Stay tuned for results...

sounds like a good idea.

I added a oil pan heater to go along with my block heater last winter and I think it has helped a bit. Diesels are cold blooded at the best of times since they are a more efficient engine. I'm sure anything you can do to warm it faster will help you out. Have you added a front belly pan? It would help keep the heat in and help the aero. as well.

No, no belly pan yet. That definitely is on my to-do list though. Eventually I want to do pretty much a full belly pan. The truck has a huge amount of area down there that looks very bad for aero. I think it's probably even worse than it is for a car too, because my truck sits so far off the ground there is much more air flow too.

Eventually I should get around to it. Every so often when I'm under the truck, I find myself looking around--hmm, I could attach here and here and...

I've always wondered if they would help on the tranny as well ?
Mines a manual so I haven't had a test bed.
How much were the pad heaters ?

I'm considering putting one on the tranny. Why wouldn't you put one on a manual?

Pad heaters were $26 each including shipping on Amazon: Amazon.com: Kat's 24150 150 Watt 4"x 5" Universal Hot Pad Heater: Automotive

Didn't think I would see a difference. I have heard of pumpkin temps being recorded and change noted. Of course that has 90W in it and my tranny only 30W......... I think........ some old ones did use 90W........... time to climb under and check !

I guess for $50 I could try both and win all around. Thanks for the ideas !

Some preliminary results....

So on Sunday I ran with basically no block heater or oil pan heaters and I watched my oil pressure gauge. I don't have an oil temperature gauge. It was in the high 40's outside. It took about 7 miles for my idle oil pressure to go to 40 psi ("normal" warm range).

This morning I plugged the block heater in overnight and the oil pan heaters were on about 5 hrs. Temps this morning were about the same, high 40's. This time my oil pressure went down to 40 psi in only about 3 miles. I'm not sure, however, how much of that may be the block heater--obviously that would help the oil warm up faster too. Maybe sometime I'll try plugging in only the block heater or only the oil pan heaters. Coolant warm up seemed to be helped too-about 8 mi to get to 200 F.

So, it does seems to be helping my warm up. Too early to tell the FE benefit. Today's trip read 37.3 mpg on the lie-o-meter, which is about my average, maybe a tick under. But the roads were wet and I had a slight headwind. Gotta collect some more data...

It amazes me that you can pull that kind of mileage from a full size truck. I know diesels are efficient, but that is impressive

Thanks, but realize that 37.3 mpg was from the in-cab display, which is appropriately nicknamed the lie-o-meter. In my experience, it reads ~15% high.

Today the weather was a little colder (high 30's), but warm up was about the same as yesterday. FE wasn't as good (only 35.2), but that was due to catching some lights badly as well as a school bus--all towards the end of my commute. Prior to the disruptions my mileage was tracking about what it normally would be on a warm day, maybe even a little better.

Before starting out, I crawled under the truck and put my hand on the oil pan to see how hot it was getting. With the heaters on for 5 hrs it was definitely warm, but still cool enough that I could comfortably keep my hand on it. I was concerned about potentially coking the oil, but I know I'm fine now. I'm not sure how hot it was, but operating temp is >200 F, and I know I wouldnt be able to keep my hand on that. I think I may try leaving them on all night tonight and seeing what happens.

I'm pretty confident that the heaters are helping my cold starts now. Today, the temps were in the high 40's and it was raining. I got 40.1 mpg on the way to work this morning. That's the best I've ever gotten in the rain. Granted there was a 6 mph tail wind and traffic was good, but it's still great.

40 mpg from a truck isn't just good - it's excellent !

Thanks, but again I must point out that's from the in-cab which reads ~15% high. So 40 mpg is probably more like 34 mpg in real life (which is still great).

Today was the coldest day of the year so far (in the 30's). Got 39.1 mpg today. Pretty sweet for the coldest day of the year.

Today was the first freezing day. It was 28 deg F when I left home. Still managed 37 mpg.

Last night when I left work it was 34 deg F. It took 5 mi for my coolant temp gauge to even start reading (140 deg F). This morning, with plugging in, it only took 2 mi.

So I found out that my oil pressure gauge is actually just a dummy gauge. grr! There's not actually a oil pressure sensor, there's only an oil pressure switch that triggers the gauge if the oil pressure is excessively low--otherwise the gauge just reads a estimated oil pressure (which I'm guessing is based on engine speed and coolant temperature). C'mon Chrysler! Really?!

So my assumption that my oil pressure gauge was an indication of how my oil pan heaters were working was incorrect.


So I'm working on actually measuring the coolant and oil times (vs. time plugged in). I'll post more when I get more data.

Yeah, pretty irritating when I came across it in one of AH64ID's posts on CF. I like your explanation of how it might work, hadn't thought of that. Genuine engine oil temp & oil press gauges now seem like a good idea.

I'm only guessing it's based on speed and coolant temp. Speed because I can see it goes up when I'm at higher rpms, and also because that would phisically make sense--the oil pump is tied to the crank so more rpms mean more oil flow. I'm guessing it's alos based on coolant temp because I definitely can see that the oil pressure "gauge" reads lower when I pre-warm.