Espar D2 Heater Install in Late Westy

[Hikelite]

[notchboy]

Alright Dave. We gona get some weekend install pics or what?

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[vwwestyman]

No, unfortunately there probably won't be much work on this project this weekend. One of the parts (the T fitting I'm using to send the heat to the two vents) was backordered so the order didn't ship.

I talked to them today and they will ship everything else so I can get started soon, and should be able to have it all set up to where I just need to pop in the T and be on my way.

I just talked to a tech guy and he felt there was probably a way to wire it up such that my thermostat can be mounted in the back, but I'll be able to at least switch the heater on and off while driving if I want. He said he had an idea on how to accomplish this, but wanted to confer with some other techs to make sure he was on the right track and promised to send me an email with what he finds out.
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Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[madscientist]

It’s in my early bay but I did this.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=689414&highlight=espar

[vwwestyman]

[vwwestyman]

Well, I got started on the install today!

The return air duct is all done. As suggested earlier in this thread, the return duct gets its air from the "cubby" under the front passenger seat. I created the duct from a piece of fence post that was left over from a project to keep my great dane in the yard! ha ha, it fit perfect for the paper duct tubing that came with the heater. A little cutting and welding and it is ready to go.

The hole is cut directly in front of the heater duct for the vent between the front seats. As you can see, I just hit it with a little spray paint to prevent rust. Pics for location reference:

Couple views of the return duct before install. There is a slight angle to make fitting the paper duct easier.

Duct Installed:

I also mostly got the bracket done for hanging the heater. I used the mounting plate that came with it, and welded a couple strips of metal I had to stiffen it up after bending the plate into the "U" shape. This bolts to a piece of angle iron that screws to the frame. I don't have pics of that just yet.

I notched the plate to clear the 90 degree outlet I later put on the heater and painted them with the white paint too.

The heating and return ducts are also installed on the bus but not attached to anything just yet, since the heater isn't mounted permanantly yet. (Still waiting on a T piece from esparparts.com.)

Also need to decide how to run the wiring and where, as well as the fuel lines. I'll also need to decide how I want to make a splash protection shield.
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Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[Tcash]

Might want to put an air filter or bug screen on the inlet?
Good luck
Tcash

[vwwestyman]

[notchboy]

If something gets sucked into the return air - it was already in the bus. Now it will pass over the heat exchanger then back into the bus. Completing the cycle of life. Back to once it came.
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[vwwestyman]

Got some more work done today. I don't know for sure, but it may be final-mounted.

I sorted out the exhaust routing, and did the worst part of the job--cutting into the fuel line to insert the T and hooking it all up! I managed to time that correctly-so that all I had to do next was shower to get the spilled diesel off me prior to going to a softball game. (We won, BTW!)

Anyway, here are some pics.

This is a shot of the heater mounted to the brackets. Upon final mounting, I did insert one nut per stud between the cross bar that screws to the Bus' frame and the modified heater mount plate to lower the heater slightly-there was a minor interference between the 90-degree outlet and the frame just below the shift rod.

A couple views of the heater mounted. Note I changed the routing of the exhaust pipe after taking these shots. (You can see this change later in this series of pics.) The return air pipe has a very minor crushed spot at the very bottom of the hole through the frame, but I do not think this will be any issue. It can catch the junk that comes through the intake! ha ha

Heater ductwork viewable in these shots. I'm waiting for a T to come in from Esparparts.com. There will be a short duct from the outlet to the T, then the T will connect these ducts. The Espar ductwork fit in between the two layers of the original heat pipe to the front duct, so I elected to leave that bit in place (imagining it would provide a little protection from cold air-maybe it will, maybe it won't but it won't hurt anything either). Some Gorilla Tape will keep the two together. That stuff is pretty impressive.

Here's the exhaust. Mounted the muffler through an already existing hole in the frame, with a small piece of metal to hold it. Also ended up routing the exhaust pipe under the frame rather than up and over it. It goes into the muffler, then over and exits by the driver side rear jack point. Besides the support provided by the muffler, I used some stainless zip ties to support the pipe.

Finally here is the metering fuel pump. Simply mounted to the frame near the heater. It is in a rubber mount, so it shouldn't transmit much if any noise to the frame. If it ends up transmitting noise, I do have a spare rubber buffer or two left over from the BA6 install in my '73, I'll use one of those.

I created a T for the fuel line with some brass parts from the hardware store, and ran the line along the underside of the fuel tank, then along the frame to the metering pump.

_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[Hikelite]

Nice work Dave

I agree with tcash about filtering that intake. I noticed how you installed it to minimize crap falling to the tube, but maybe some old tshirt material or some pantyhose over the top would be enough.


What are the 4 pipes underneath your bus? It looks like 4 pieces of copper water pipe. They are in a bunch of your pictures, but move around.
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~Kevin

My 1968 Campmobile

[vwwestyman]

[vwwestyman]

I didn't make a whole lot of progress tonight. I did get the fuel pump plug put together.

I also attempted a test-fire. It started/nearly started a couple times. I was thinking the fan sounded funny, and realized that the return air tube as currently set up was putting some upward pressure on the plastic heater case, causing a little rubbing.

By the time I got that figured out it didn't want to restart after it went through a cool down phase. I removed the front spacer nut to bring the front end up slightly. I think this will probably solve the fan problem. However, I think (hope) it probably has now logged an error code or two which is causing it to be shut down.

That means I'll have to wire up the controller fully before I can clear the codes.

I did figure out that there is one wire that you can apply power to to turn it on without the thermostat (that is how I did the test run) so I can probably use this knowledge to rig up a front control switch. I may use the rear window defrost switch. Seems somewhat fitting, and that doesn't work anyway.
_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[Stuartzickefoose]

Nice!!
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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[vwwestyman]

Ok, so I talked with Ray at Espar Parts and he confirmed that I can use the yellow wire as an on/off signal for the heater. I had imagined that it would always be running full blast whenever it is switched on this way, but he says that once everything is wired up, it should be thermostatically controlled by the thermostat in the back when I switch it on from up front. The only caveat will be that I would have to turn that front switch back to the off position in order to control the heater from the thermostat. Because I plan to have power to the switch only when the key is on, this will not be an issue.

If the thermostat function works, then that is a bonus. If I just switch it on and off full blast from the front, I'm totally fine with that.

After I wrote about using the old defrost switch as my simple on/off, it occurred to me that it would be even better to use an old Eberspacher BN4 or BA6 switch. Then I could have the timer function for pre-heating the Bus if I wanted. And it would be more "fitting." But that is down the road and will be more of a for-fun mod later on. I'll start with the defrost switch. (Unless someone wants to donate an old switch for science!)

I don't know how much more I'll have time to do on it before Memorial Day; I have a foster son who is moving Friday so I'll want to spend some time with him (unless he just wants to play video games, I guess...) and then I'm going out of town for the weekend.
_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[vwwestyman]

Control wiring is all set. Power wiring not so much, but I was able to determine that the heater stored a code for the fan having an issue. Remember the other day I said it seemed that the fan was rubbing on the body.

I tried to clear it but it didn't want to clear. It didn't retry starting the heater either, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong just yet; ran out of time to mess with it today.

The controller came with a nice sticker drill template. Worked great for drilling the holes, and then peeled off cleanly when I was done.

_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[vwwestyman]

Well dammit. As seems to be the luck with me and projects in this bus, when the fan was rubbing on the case when I test-ran the heater, it damaged the fan motor.

I talked to a couple different Espar experts (one in Canada and one in Michigan) and both confirmed my fears.

So a new motor is on the way. Oh well, it is what it is. I guess a learning experience.

I'll rework the ducting a little if needed, and you all can benefit from my experience.

_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[notchboy]

That sucks

Maybe the new stuff is just a delicate little biotch?
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[vwwestyman]

Got a chance today to work on the heater install.

I'd say that the install is done as far as the heater goes (meaning I don't think I'll need to remove the heater again for a while).

I decided that while I don't think it is probably necessary, it wouldn't hurt to help seal up the case a little bit. So I smeared a bit of high-temp RTV over the openings. It'll be easy enough to open it if needed.

I'm not quite done with the splash shield. Pics will follow when I get there!

I fired it up a couple times and everything seems to be working just fine.

I got conflicting information about what would happen when I connected the yellow wire to 12v. One dealer told me that it would still work according to the thermostat setting, another told me that it would always be on full blast. I think maybe it is the thermostat setting--I had it going one time and it eventually went to a low mode and later stopped.

...it was right around 100 degrees up near the controller, so I think the thermostat actually did tell it to shut down. Gotta finish running the wire up to the front to connect to a switch.

I also need to run new wires for the rear heater core fan, and build ductwork to tie it together to exit along with the Espar heat. I have ideas...

It was pretty nice to feel the hot air coming from the vents-even if it was hot outside!

Here is a pic.

_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[vwwestyman]

Welp the heater is running and doing it's job. However, instead of ramping down as it reaches the set point, it eventually gets an overheat code and shuts down completely.

I've been emailing with a guy who worked on those heaters (and many other Eberspacher/Espar heaters). He said potentially the problem could be that I am trying to test it on very hot days; even in the morning the other day when I was messing with it, it was probably 80-85 degrees out or close.

So he said it could potentially be that and it'll work fine in cooler weather, though he added that it is designed to be heating room temp air anyway. Perhaps when it is cold out and I'm only asking it to heat air from, say 40-65 degrees or something it won't ever trip the overheat sensor, and I'm currently asking it to heat 80 degrees to 93 degrees.

However, he said that he felt that the 90 degree "hoods" (Espar's nomenclature for the heat outlet) tend to be troublesome unless they exit immediately into a heat outlet in the cabin. Basically that they slow the air flow down enough that it causes the heater to overheat. He said he felt that the T fitting may also be part of the issue; that he prefers a Y because it tends to have better air flow.

So based on what he said, I have some testing to do. But I'll have to wait until the heat breaks at a minimum to know for sure.

In the mean time, I am quite sure I'll get it figured out just fine. I may have to reroute the ductwork a bit but I think that'll be it.

For now, here is the splash shield I built. It is made from a 1/4 thick sheet of polyurethane sheeting I had leftover from a basketball goal repair.

As a side effect, I think it may be directing air through my radiator a little better! So I need to play with that, too.

_________________
Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing