Anyone Use Engine Heaters?

[old mechanic]

There is no comparison. The water jacket heater is the only one to use. This heats the whole engine block instead of just 4 or 5 qts of oil. Hot oil hitting cold galleries/rails adds up to cold oil and cold block. Cold oil hitting warm block (tremendous mass and heat inertia) adds up to warm block with warming oil through galleries.

The biggest benefit of the water jacket heater is that the moving metal parts, i.e. the crank and cam shaft and valve train, are warm at startup. Most metals are less ductile the colder they get, so the stresses are increased each cycle/rotation when rotating or reciprocating. This increases the stresses in the moving parts during the natural harmonic vibrations of a running engine.

IN A NUTSHELL; Use synthetic oils in the winter. If your area gets extremely cold for prolonged periods, get a water jacket heater. Use a timer. About three hours is a good number, as mentioned by someone, to pre-heat.

The oilpan heaters allow the car to crank easier, which makes you feel good, but do little to eliminate the root downside of cold starts.

PS; I change my oil once a year with semi-synthetic, or synthetic, period. I do it in the spring to eliminate any acids that may have developed from winter shutdown condensation in the oil. I use to be an every 3000 mi. man, but, well, maybe I'm just getting old and lazy, but, I did do alot of research.

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NICE POST! Interesting about using the SIMI Synthetic oil.
Only time I had a heater was a GM Car? made in Canada and it came through with a freeze plug heater for the water and a dip stick heater for the oil. I used them sometimes with the O- -10? degree days and they worked great.
When I was a kid we used a extention wire and put a couple of light bulbs on top of the motor. It seemed to help a little. But having just alcohol (no permenent antifreeze in those days) and it would boil away. Having no money for alcohol we drained the water from the block and (don't ask me why) we took the radiator with the hoses out and brought it in the cellar overnight.
Hummm! The good old days? LOL!
BTW: In the winter I take a couple of quarts out of my vehicles radiators and they seem to heat up faster.

 

[Mbrooks420]

My block heater was a factory Ford Freeze plug type. They can be had on e bay for under 20. Having full heat within a mile of startup with little to no warm up in 0 degree weather makes a lot of sence to me.

 

[rookieshooter]

I've taken one of those 500 watt halogen work lights and placed it right under the oil pan. That radiant heat really heats up that pan which in turn heats up the oil, oil pick-tube thats emmersed in oil by way of convection heat, and then to crank. Just try one time.

 

[old mechanic]

I've taken one of those 500 watt halogen work lights and placed it right under the oil pan. That radiant heat really heats up that pan which in turn heats up the oil, oil pick-tube thats emmersed in oil by way of convection heat, and then to crank. Just try one time.

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500 WATT HALOGEN??? Much better than the 75-100 watt light bulb I used to use when I was a kid.

 

[Ranger379]

with the one from my above post, how do u hook it up? does it go completely inside the lower rad hose? or cut the hose and splice the heater in? i think ill go with that kind, that means draining the rad. good time for a coolant change lol.

 

[Rick]

Growing up in Chicago we never used block heaters on our vehicles which were parked outside, we used battery heaters. With a strong battery the engine turned over without a problem. That was in the day of carburated motors which sometimes needed quite a bit of cranking to get them running. An ice cold battery doesn't have the same performance as a warm battery.

I have heard that the block heaters can cause condensation in the engine which can lead to internal parts rusting and oil contamination. Never saw it happen, but it sounded logical.