Espar B1LCc Install in 84 Vanagon Westfalia

[raoul mitgong]

Thanks to Youderian for his post: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6...p;start=40
that made me aware the B1LC existed and Dyldebus for posting a good deal in that same thread.
I got the heater, install kit, and 7-Day timer for $900 (but then spent another 200 on the High altitude pump and 50 on the muffler). Under $1200 after shipping, and misc. tees and clamps.

I read somewhere here that there should be a flat spot here, crap:

Since my 84 had no flat spot, I had to mount the heater on the peak. This aligned the mounting bolts on the slope of the sheet metal. Impossible to accurately drill on an angle without a jig. So I made this jig out of 12 guage galvanized I had laying around. Bolted it to the floor and drilled the 4 mounting holes.

Then I used a step drill to open up the intake/exhaust holes.

I ended up a little closer to the bench wall than I expected so I drilled a 1.375" hole in the bench support at the inlet. Total square inches at the opening is now about 50% more than the inlet diameter. Turns out I like this mistake, probably do it again.

I put the 7 day timer in the standard spot. Note on this kit: I need to jump pin 10 to 11 in order to fool the controller to think the key is in ACC. This will allow the heater to run overnight. Without this jumper, it will max out at 120 minutes of run time.

-d
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84 Westy with a 2.1 (Groover)
86 Tintop Syncro (Crow)
86 Tintop Syncro to Westy project (Tom Servo)
91 Westy (Only the top 12 inches of this van (a burn victim))

[DwarfVader]

nice... have you tested it yet?
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- oderint dum metuant -

I'll find my van someday, or it will find me.

[raoul mitgong]

Under the van.

I have the muffler but didn't want to use standard hose clamps. Need to order the burly clamp on the right to make sure I don't get any leaks. It is a bit loud outside the van. Definitely would disturb other campers if they were close. That white plate was the jig from above. I sealed up the bolt holes and used the plate as a bridge over the valley in the floor.

I would also advise putting the tee after the little square filter because, why not. I could not find a proper tee for the larger size so I decided to use what I had. I might make this change later but good chance it will stay this way unless I get dirty fuel issues. Most don't have that filter anyway. A small "mower" filter might be easier if I do have issues.

Here is a wider angle shot. I could have placed the fuel pump inside that frame section but figured I'd rather be able to inspect it easily.

-d
_________________
84 Westy with a 2.1 (Groover)
86 Tintop Syncro (Crow)
86 Tintop Syncro to Westy project (Tom Servo)
91 Westy (Only the top 12 inches of this van (a burn victim))

[raoul mitgong]

[raoul mitgong]

There was some confusion in the other thread concerning this heater and running it at high altitude, >5000'.

On the high altitude pump or H kit, it looks like the H kit for the B1LCc is not the cheap one, it does cost $700 or so according to Greg at Lubrication Spec. I also talked to a tech at Espar (Mike, the Espar guru with decades of experience) who told me that I should just run the high altitude pump and not bother with installing both in my situation (live in Denver and rarely camp lower). I would just see a drop in performance at low altitude vs the standard pump. He said it would not damage the system in any way running it at a lower altitude with the high altitude pump.

-d
_________________
84 Westy with a 2.1 (Groover)
86 Tintop Syncro (Crow)
86 Tintop Syncro to Westy project (Tom Servo)
91 Westy (Only the top 12 inches of this van (a burn victim))

[newfisher]

Remember to sweep the snow off the solar panel at the hill

[davevickery]

Those specs look comparable to the other gas/diesel heaters. I would think once the van is warm, it would run on medium, so under 2 amps. You should be able to run it 15 hours on an aux battery. Combine your batteries and you should be able to get 2 days.

[youderian]

Great write-up, Raoul, and glad my original post was helpful!

Looking at your install from under the van on the passenger side makes me jealous - so much room to get to the underside of the heater! Hope you enjoy it in the van, the Espar has been one of my favorite upgrades, and definitely my wife's favorite addition.
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1990 Westy Syncro with 2.5L

[raoul mitgong]

Newfisher, I do hope for so much snow that it is a problem. That is the type of problem I can deal with!

Youderian, thanks for the compliments. I'd love to hear your experience so far, especially on battery usage. You have a battery under the rear bench, right? I'm hoping to avoid a larger battery back there and stick with a group 41 under the driver's seat. How many amp-hours do you have and how has the voltage drop been?

Dave, thanks for the info. I am hoping your are right and an overnight isn't going to run my battery too low. I've got one of those $50 Harbor Freight jump start booster units that has 17 amp-hours. Thinking this might be an easy way to boost my group 41 if I'm on the edge. I don't have a combiner, which would make me nervous about getting stuck somewhere. I think the downside of this unit is the glow plug. New units I was told use something else with less draw. So if it does a lot of restarts, I am going to drain the battery pretty quick. The B1LCcompact sure is small though which I love.

Just picked up a bunch of Reflectix and 3M 77 at Home Depot to insulate the easy to reach areas. Got enough to do poptop insulation too if I get really motivated.
I plan on making a sheet metal protector for the heater outlets under the van (I happen to own a sheet metal shop) and use it to mount the muffler. Pictures when I get to it.
The unit is really small and I crammed it in as tight as I could. I also plan to protect exposed parts in the bench compartment with an aluminum tray so I can continue to toss tools, levelers, jumper cables, etc. back there without concern. Thinking of hinging it so I can easily get to the heater if there are issues. Likely make a few of both parts if anyone out there is about to do a similar install in the same location.

-d
_________________
84 Westy with a 2.1 (Groover)
86 Tintop Syncro (Crow)
86 Tintop Syncro to Westy project (Tom Servo)
91 Westy (Only the top 12 inches of this van (a burn victim))

[davevickery]

So wait, you don't have an aux battery, just a jump starter pack? Or both? I did a quick calculation on Amp hours used if the unit restarts every 15 minutes and because it is a high draw for such a short time, 45 seconds I think, it doesn't really eat up the battery. Do the math, you will see. And that is on my bigger unit that shuts off more. Yours likely will never shut all the way off in night time winter temps. Anyway when it is idling it is saving power, so it is basically a wash power-wise whether it runs all the time or starts and stops.

I don't understand people's concern about a manual battery switch. You never forget. I have an led voltmeter plugged into a 12 volt outlet that reminds me continuously how my batteries are doing. Before I go to bed if I am worried about running the starting battery too low, I disconnect them. Using the starting battery for all those hours before going to bed is basically free power just sitting there. My van doesn't have any trouble starting with the battery half full. No way would I want to add a giant battery under the seat until I am take advantage of the battery power sitting under the seats.

In practice I just leave mine connected. A grp 41 battery is 65-70 Ah, so 2 of them is 130-140. Even draining them both down half way gives you a lot of power and is better than draining the aux battery down 100%. But you can go half way on the starting battery and 75% on the aux battery, plus run the engine for a half hour the next day if you aren't going to be driving the van.

I know everyone has their own way of dealing with battery usage. I just don't get the concern over forgetting to switch them. You just don't forget, you get into a habit and are always looking at the voltage, almost obsessively.

Congrats on getting the heater installed. With the exhaust in the jack point, don't forget to check if it is clogged with snow before using it. I know a lot of people use that spot, but it is a lousy location for winter road conditions.

[raoul mitgong]

Dave, I've got standard group 41 starter batteries (not deep cycle) under both front seats AND the jump pack. I guess the concern comes from ignorance. I have never run anything but the fridge fan on that aux battery and just don't know what to expect. Since I don't run anything off that aux battery I have pretty much ignored it. I've never bothered to keep an eye on voltage of either battery, never a need to.

Running out of heat or not starting in the morning with two small kids would really suck.

When you are giving these values, like half and 75%, what voltage does this correspond to? Do you know what voltage is a minimum to start your van?

-d
_________________
84 Westy with a 2.1 (Groover)
86 Tintop Syncro (Crow)
86 Tintop Syncro to Westy project (Tom Servo)
91 Westy (Only the top 12 inches of this van (a burn victim))

[davevickery]

I think you should run the heater overnight in your driveway and check the voltage before you start and check it a couple hours after your shut the heater off the next morning.

A typical lead acid starting battery is 100% at 12.65 and above. It varies a bit by battery and type but the numbers below are a good rough estimate. Ideally you want to let the battery rest after you were using it in order to read the correct resting voltage. The voltage will slowly come up after you remove any draw on it. Running something like a heater or fridge or radio, it will come up and settle pretty quickly, maybe an hour or two. Likewise after charging, you have to wait for it to come down to rest. That can take longer, maybe 6 hours to see if it is really fully charged. But if it was already charged and you drove a while, just consider it at 100%.

You can google battery state of charge and see a bunch of charts. But basically:

12.65 or higher is 100%
12.5 is 75%
12.2 is 50%
12.0 is 25%.

When my heater is just running normally voltage will read .1 or .2V lower than right after I turn it off. Lower if the glow plug is warming. Then the voltage will come up maybe .2 volts more over the next hour as the battery comes to rest. So when it running and the battery is getting down there, I see voltage as low as 12.1. But if I shut the heater off true resting voltage will eventually read 12.3 or 12.4 which is still fine. You get pretty good looking at the voltage and knowing how it is doing no matter whether stuff is running or not.

I added a 12V plug that powers off my aux battery (In the stove panel) and it is great for a bunch of things. I keep the voltmeter in it and I see it every time I get in the van. I can plug it into the front and see how my starting battery is doing if I have them disconnected at my manual switch. They only cost $5-10 on Amazon. Mine only goes out to one decimal place, but it is good enough to keep an eye on things.

My van has started fine down near 12 volts (I forget the exact #) but that is getting pretty far down there. It got down to 11.8 when I was just testing it in the driveway and it would not start. Out in the woods, I would not want both batteries to get that low. Besides that is not good for your batteries. But there is always roll start option (although dangerous to our wimpy transmissions) and someone will probably come along eventually in most places, but if I thought I would go below 50% on my starting battery, I'd stop using it. If I carried a jump starter pack that would give me a better feeling of security.

I don't know that much about batteries, but I set my last couple vans up this way and it worked fine for my type of trips.

[youderian]

[DeadSetMonkey]

[raoul mitgong]

Dave, thanks, that is info I can work with.

Youderian, no rush.

Deadset, quiter in the van. I think once I make the case for it, it will quiet down a bit more. Not much you can do about the fan noise though. The box itself doesn't get too hot. I'll put my IR temp gun on it next time I run it. I haven't really had a chance to do much experimenting yet as I've been working until midnight all week. Gonna take my 3.5 year old to Eldora this weekend so we will see how it goes. Run it overnight in the driveway too perhaps.

-d
_________________
84 Westy with a 2.1 (Groover)
86 Tintop Syncro (Crow)
86 Tintop Syncro to Westy project (Tom Servo)
91 Westy (Only the top 12 inches of this van (a burn victim))

[DeadSetMonkey]

[blackglasspirate]

Anyone know the part number for the high altitude pump? Not sure which one works with the B1LCc.
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'87 Vanagon GL Westfalia
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