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It would seem that a car heater, or just an “oven” is a big deal! Present on all machines worked for many years. However…
Once in the cabin of most cars it was not heated at all – it was an unprecedented luxury. During the war, drivers took a bucket of hot coals with them on flights. It's not hard to imagine that she was a danger because the cab of the truck was partly made of wood. And since the doors served as a canvas curtain (without glasses, of course), and the heat from the coal bucket lasted so long.
Why go far, the German Volkswagen Beetle, which had an air-cooled engine, was produced without a “stove” almost until the 1970s. Its interior had heated exhaust gases directed to finned tubes on the body sills. The heat from them through the “window” on the rapids arrived at the feet of the driver and passengers. In fact, the efficiency of such a heating system depends on the speed, and at 80-90 km / h the car was warm. So, with relative comfort, he could move along the highway, but not in urban conditions.
In fact, the problem was not the heat: after all, the riders could have just been tightly dressed. In cold weather, the car is desperately fogged glass, and this can lead to complete loss of vision. I had the opportunity to drive a car, which, for some unknown reason, “stove”, refused to give heat. At a temperature of about 5 degrees, the glasses fogged up tightly, and in order to provide at least a minimal comment, we were lightly dressed, I had to go with … air conditioning.
Why do we need a “stove”, “Zaporozhets”?
In the Soviet “Zaporozhets” there is no air conditioning and an air-cooled engine and Zhuk ruled out installing liquid in the heater. But under the hood in the front (the engine was in the rear) there was a small auxiliary heater receiving fuel from the car's tank. This device is considered simply the top of security, but I otrolig “Cossacks” for about three years, I have kept the warmest memories of it. One of them was curious. This thing refused to turn on, and I thought that I would have to go through all the tests that experienced owners said. But this did not happen: a friend, also the owner of Zaza, was able to activate the “stove” with one turn of a screwdriver! I also tried to turn it in the same place and in the same direction while making prelaunch adjustments, but I didn't seem to have the courage to do another half turn. In the future, it worked flawlessly, and the autonomy of the device was allowed to warm up in the car without starting the engine. True, not very long, otherwise you can put the battery down, and left it without fuel in the tank if there was not much of it.
What do we know about it now? The fact that the Shadrinsk auto-aggregate plant still produces such devices, and they are used in quite modern models. In addition, autonomous heaters of well-known foreign brands of the company work on the same principle and differ only in the quality of workmanship, and, of course, the price. But more on this later, and now let's talk about the most common liquid heaters for the interiors of modern cars.
All of them work according to the same principle: when the engine coolant is heated, when the heating system is turned on, it enters an additional radiator located in the passenger compartment behind the front panel, and the heated air is carried by a fan to the “sleeves” in different parts of the cabin. Sometimes, if the car is large, there are two fans and the air ducts can reach the fifth door area of station wagons, minivans and SUVs.
If the “stove” fan began to whistle, this does not always indicate its critical wear. Try to find your place in the cabin and remove it by unscrewing a couple of screws, it's not just easy, but very easy, even on a foreign car. The cause of extraneous sound will definitely be caught on dry leaf blades or remove a strip of sealant. The repair will take a few minutes.
The coolant after starting a cold engine does not heat up instantly, so it takes a long time to warm up the interior, especially if there is a large interior and a diesel engine. Many manufacturers already on the assembly line equip their models with coolant preheaters and auxiliary heaters with timers. Then the cabin heating can be programmed.
On the domestic UAZ, accelerating the heating of the cabin is an additional pump that takes liquid from the hot zone of the engine and transfers it to the “stove” radiator. “Gatelist” install the pump by yourself. It is effective, but until recently it was considered unreliable – it often leaks. In addition, the noise from it almost duplicated the noise of the engine warming up at higher revs.
Have you warmed up? Go. If you think that your car is from the category of “cold”, do not believe yourself, but it is better to carefully read the instructions on how to heat the “stove”. Perhaps you are just doing the wrong thing and there is no direct airflow. It is especially dangerous to send hot air to the windshield that does not heat up, it can crack. And do not try to improve the “stove”, for example, by inserting similarity filters into its air intakes to protect the internal surfaces from dust. Sweating is inevitable! Any heating and ventilation system is calculated by designers and strategic adjustments are very skillful hands.
Take a nap on the side
Is there an autonomous heater, does it make sense to install it? Definitely yes, if you often travel by car for personal or professional needs. A short break behind the wheel won't hurt anyone, but condensation forming on the glass while you sleep is not good for a car. After all, moisture flows down the inner side of the skin, can get on electrical contacts and cause their oxidation and, as a result, failure of any devices and systems. So sleep much better ventilation. But, opening the windows in cold weather, you quickly freeze, and in warm weather, dust, noise and blood-sucking insects penetrate into the cabin.
A small “submarine” stove will solve the problems of both heat and ventilation. Such heaters are called air heaters, or in driver's slang, it's a “hair dryer”. They can get fuel (gasoline or diesel) directly from the car's tank or from a small separate container. The consumption of this “hair dryer” is about 200 grams per hour at the same time, the engine is idling, grind a few liters. Battery consumption is too low, the night will be spent only 1/20 of the battery capacity. Autonomous power you can't Chase: a 1.5-2-kilowatt device is easy to heat the interior of an SUV or minivan.
The device is a self-contained “cooker” similar to Zaporozhye, that is. An electromagnetic pump supplies fuel from the tank to the evaporator, which, for example, is heated red-hot by a grid of refractory wire. In front of the evaporator with a plug, an electric glow that provides ignition (when this happens, the candle automatically turns off). A small fan pumps for the air evaporator fan, more heat from the combustion chamber and feeds it to the interior heating system. The combustion chamber is made of aluminum or stainless steel.
“Submarine” starts with a remote control, and its operation is controlled by electronics, without overheating, on some devices there is even an audible signal, designed to wake up a sleeping driver in case of danger. The cost of domestically produced equipment is 18 to 25 thousand conventional units, installation, depending on the length of the additional fuel line, will cost 5-6 thousand conventional units. “Grants” in this area – heaters firms Webasto and Eberspaecher – offered for 40,000 conditional units and more.