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Nov 20, 2022 13:26:24 GMT
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Hello,
In my Giulia i have a modern commonrail jtd engine.
This engine warms up very bad at this colder weather. The thermostat is new. It's just that the engine hardly needs to work to keep the car rolling. My daily drive to work is quite busy so it spends most of the time below 2k revs at no load. At the end of my 45 min drive the coolant will be just be opening the thermostat.
My heaterbox contributes to the problem. It has no provision to control outside airflow entering the cabin. So the pressurezone at the windscreen base forces air in, increasing volume as speed increases. So there is a lot of airflow cooling the radiator in the heaterbox.. with the heatervalve closed the engine warms up way better.
I have seen some vw engines with glowplugs in the cooling system to help warming up. Would this be a viable option to help warming up?
Would an oil/coolant heatexchanger help? These were on the 10v engines standard but in the 20v they used an oil cooler. I binned them both to free up space.
Last options include fitting some electric heating element from a modern car and modifying my heaterbox.
If anyone has another suggestion please share.. i would like to have some warmth while driving around 😅
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Nov 20, 2022 14:03:10 GMT
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Nov 20, 2022 14:31:17 GMT
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Thanks for the link.
But there is no technical problem with my engine or cooling system. The thermostat works as supposed too and the sensors are just fine.
If you start the car when cold and just leave it idling it will take almost an hour to heat up the coolant since there is no load. In summer conditions it worked better as the higher ambient temperature helps it warm up faster.
The way i see it is that the engine creates little heat due to the very limited load i put on it. And with the heatervalve open i effectively use the heater as a radiator. That makes it even worse.
I think i will try to block the airflow through the heaterbox first, see what that brings.
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Nov 20, 2022 14:58:38 GMT
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You could go old fashioned and blank off a portion of the radiator/grille with some card board or similar.Was a very common way of upping heat on old cars of the 60's/70's.
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Needs a bigger hammer mate.......
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Nov 20, 2022 15:23:48 GMT
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That might work if there was no thermostat in the system.
However the coolant in the radiator doesn't get heated up. It's not the radiator that's cooling the system down to much.
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geoffc
Part of things
Posts: 55
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Nov 20, 2022 15:23:57 GMT
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Our old freelander, 04 facelift model had a factory fit webasto diesel heater to help heat the coolant as the engine struggled to generate sufficient heat. Was thermostatic control so only work when it was cold enough. Had a little exhaust pipe in the bottom of the front bumper similar to a truck night heater. Wondered what the hell it was when we first had it. The only time the engine got warm under its own power was in summer pulling a caravan lol.
Maybe something similar could be fitted to yours ?
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,819
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Nov 20, 2022 15:48:12 GMT
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Is it plumbed correctly? IIRC on most cars I've had the heater tapping is before the thermostat. Also is it the correct temperature thermostat? if it opens at too low a temperature you'll get exactly that effect.
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Last Edit: Nov 20, 2022 15:50:25 GMT by jimi
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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Nov 20, 2022 16:00:05 GMT
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Yes it is plumbed as original in the donor vehicle.
Hot coolant comes out the back of the cylinder head.there is the thermostat housing. There is a connection for the heater before the thermostat so that's not affected by the thermostat, it gets hot coolant direct from the head.
The thermostat closes of the main passage to the radiator when cold. Coolant flows through a bypass straight to the water pump entry. When thermostat opens the bypass is closed.
In my situation the coolant follows that path and if you open the heatervalve you allow coolant to go through the radiator in the heaterbox which cools down the temperature, lengthening the time it takes to warm up the engine.
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Nov 20, 2022 16:01:14 GMT
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Our old freelander, 04 facelift model had a factory fit webasto diesel heater to help heat the coolant as the engine struggled to generate sufficient heat. Was thermostatic control so only work when it was cold enough. Had a little exhaust pipe in the bottom of the front bumper similar to a truck night heater. Wondered what the hell it was when we first had it. The only time the engine got warm under its own power was in summer pulling a caravan lol. Maybe something similar could be fitted to yours ? That looks interesting but i've not really got any space to fit such a unit😅
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,819
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Nov 20, 2022 16:43:14 GMT
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On my MR2 MK1 the heater take off is before the thermostat so the water pump circulates water around the engine & heater (through the heater valve if open) and returns to the water pump, it only flows to the radiator once the thermostat opens, the heater valve position makes no difference to that and doesn't bypass the thermostat. Because it's mid-engined with the radiator (and heater) at the front the system contains a lot of water, 12.4 litres (probably twice as much as a front-engined car) yet the heater heats up quickly summer or winter and the car gets up to temp in a normal timescale (summer or winter) once up to temperature the gauge needle sits 1 division below the middle and doesn't move no matter how the car is driven or the ambient temperature. It also has an water/oil cooler/heater in the engine bay which serves to heat the oil quicker when it's cold and to cool the oil (to the water temperature) when hot My X1-9 was a similar setup and behaved much the same and I've worked on front-engined cars with a similar setups. I'd be surprised if the manufacturer hasn't taken all the different factors into account when designing the cooling/heating system especially if they intended to sell worldwide
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Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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Nov 20, 2022 17:45:34 GMT
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On my car it's the same.. heater take off before thermostat and it's return goes straight to the waterpump, not through the radiator.
With the engine warming up a bit you get heat coming from the heater but the radiator stays cold until the thermostat opens.
Modern diesel engines are very efficient.most of them use an electric auxiliary heating element to get warmth to the cabin sooner.
The 156 where the engine came out off has an electronically controlled heating system that limits the airflow through the heater. And that car is about 300kg heavier so the engine has to work harder.
My car drives 50mph at about 1400rpm. If i drive it at 75mph it gets better due to more load.
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mk2cossie
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,953
Club RR Member Number: 77
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Nov 20, 2022 18:04:48 GMT
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On my car it's the same.. heater take off before thermostat and it's return goes straight to the waterpump, not through the radiator. With the engine warming up a bit you get heat coming from the heater but the radiator stays cold until the thermostat opens. Modern diesel engines are very efficient.most of them use an electric auxiliary heating element to get warmth to the cabin sooner. The 156 where the engine came out off has an electronically controlled heating system that limits the airflow through the heater. And that car is about 300kg heavier so the engine has to work harder. My car drives 50mph at about 1400rpm. If i drive it at 75mph it gets better due to more load. Did the 156 have an EGR cooler on the engine you have fitted in your Giullietta? As a friends SEAT Leon was awful for getting any temperature out of the interior heater with that item removed 😳 Would it be possible to plumb something to leech heat off the exhaust downpipe in to the cooling system?
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Nov 20, 2022 18:26:18 GMT
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Did the 156 have an EGR cooler on the engine you have fitted in your Giullietta? As a friends SEAT Leon was awful for getting any temperature out of the interior heater with that item removed 😳 Would it be possible to plumb something to leech heat off the exhaust downpipe in to the cooling system? The 156 20v does indeed have an egr cooler i think.🤔 On the older 10v that's not present however. In my Giulia there is zero room for it as the engine is converted to rwd and the bulkhead leaves very little room there.
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Nov 20, 2022 20:00:51 GMT
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Maybe this will be a solution. Ford uses something like this on some models and so does Peugeot/citroen and Renault. Contains glowplugs and is switched by the ecu depending on outside temp, coolant temp and alternator load. I think i'm going to see how big this thing is. Might fit behind my dashboard and the wiring would not be to hard. Just need to think of a good way to control them.
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Nov 20, 2022 21:29:45 GMT
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Does the car definately only have on thermostat?
I had a diesel X-Type (mondeo engine) and it had two, I changed the obvious one and it was still the same. Changing the second one cured the problem.
As a temporary fix I found putting card in front of the radiator helped a lot, I know you have said the radiator is cold but it might feel cold to you but still be putting out some heat energy. It should be easy to test and prove.
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Nov 20, 2022 22:10:47 GMT
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The engine definitely only has one thermostat.😉
I've had the engine in and out of the car several times and modified everything myself to make it fit the car.
- tempgauge goes up real slow.faster if you leave the heatervalve closed. - radiator stays cold. Piece of stainless pipe that connects it to the engine feels cold. - thermostat is new. - in warmer weather no problem getting up to temp. Not does it get too high. Gauge neatly in the middle and steady.
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stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,839
Club RR Member Number: 174
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Nov 20, 2022 22:48:07 GMT
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I'm not sure how efficient those glow plug type water heaters are, they're very common on the vans we're doing engines on and as far as I can tell they just put enough temperature difference in to demist the windscreen quicker, you can't "feel" the heat as such. I'll try and get some photos and measurements of one tomorrow.
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jimi
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,819
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Nov 20, 2022 23:33:26 GMT
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A quick google seems to show it seems to be quite a common complaint with JTD engines in cold weather, some cars with that engine even had optional electric heating to help out. As you say having no way of controlling the amount of outside air going through the heater box won't be helping, worth trying to block/partially restrict the amount of outside air coming in and see what difference it makes. I would also try the suggestion of temporarily blocking off part (or all) of the radiator, even if the thermostat isn't opening, cold air is still flowing through the radiator and cooling the engine block, it's easy to do and easy to revert if it does no good. Do you know what the temperature rating on the thermostat is ?
Many years ago when I had a (proper) mini I had to do that in the winter (tested out with cardboard to start with, doesn't last once it gets wet) otherwise the cold air used to ice up the chokes on my Webber carb (which was on a water heated manifold) and cause the car to run like a bag of bolts ☹️
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Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
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Thermostat is 88 degrees.
I'll see if i can close up the opening to the heater a bit to stop the bulk of the air flowing through.
Masking of the radiator is harder as you think, there is also an equally big intercooler in front of it😅. But i'll give it a try.👍
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jamesd1972
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,839
Club RR Member Number: 40
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In the Nordics a lot of people used to use engine pre heaters believe some are just a plug in heating element the fancy ones circulated the water as well. Plugged into the mains on a timer and bobs your mothers brother. Webasto were the name that sprang to memory. James
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