Kat's Tank Heater

[mudbuggy]

I just picked one up this evening on my way home from the shop. Looked at the paperwork and the web site and the site says that the motor option is an ls. Thought that was neat, anyways, if any of you are running them where did you decide for the cold water supply to run from? I know where the warm it to hook at, just wondering?

While I'm at it if your not running this brand then what? and why?

 

[mudbuggy]

Well I guess I'm the guinea pig on this one. Just finished off the install, wasn't expecting it to be 40 degrees, the weatherman said it was suppose to be in the mid 50's. Guess he didn't get the memo.

Anyways it went just like I figured, a bitch, toughest part was getting the bracket to mount up where the tank can produce the heat correctly. Bet I set that thing in 4 different positions before settling on the final location. Topped off the coolant and parked it for the night, now tonight I'll stay up until my normal weeknight bedtime,(1:00 am) then plug it in. Then I will simulate going to work in the morning (no I'm not going to put my uniform on) but I will go out and turn the ignition on to see what the temp guage reads. Then check for leaks, I let it sit idleing for 20 minutes hopoing that murphy would pull his crap now and not on Monday morning. Since nothing happened today, I'm hoping that if something goes wrong it will happen tomorrow morning and not on Monday. I did get pictures taken while was doing the install, I'll try to get those up this weekend but no promises.

 

[Fordum]

I've got something similar on my diesel genset. Its considerably bigger than that one. It did ok, but the thermostat switch burned up after about a year.
I ordered a new one, and asked about the life span. They said they are usually good for a few years.
Then, the element burned out. I asked again, and they said that it should last almost forever.
Turns out the unit was not turning off when the genset kicked on. If it was on when it started, it would stay on until the coolant got past the thermostat setting. But, in the meanwhile, the water pump was sucking the coolant out of the tank and letting the element run dry.

Since the thermostat was a little Klixon disk used for overtemps on air conditioner compressors, it was never designed for lots of switching under heavy load. It was directly switching a 2400 watt element at 240 volts. I mounted a heavy duty contactor in the panel box, hooked the element to those contacts.
Ran 24 volts to the coil, through the thermostat, and then through the NC contacts of the fuel pump relay.

Thus the thermostat only saw about 1/4 amp, and when the electric fuel pump kicked it to let the genset start, it killed the heater.

Been doing fine for years now.

Don't remember the brand, but it was not Kat. It was also mounted horizontally, with the cold water coming in the end and the hot water going out the side. I moved it slightly so the hot end was higher than the cold end, and it sped things up a lot.

 

[zombiyjay76]

I use the wolverine oil pan heater on mine. Tried block heaters, but they would start to leak within one season of use. I've had the pan heater for about 3 years now, but I do have to change it. Looks like the one I have had a manufacturing issue, the silicone on the outside of it is starting to come off. They told me that they would just send me a new one.

 

[mudbuggy]

Thanks for the replies guys good to know that I'm not the only one getting lazy in my old age. I moved up my timetable for tonight's test. I plugged it in 10 minutes ago and went to check that its working. In the time it took for me to go out in the garage, plug it in, go in the house and put my cold weather gear on, walk out and pop the hood. The heater had the hot supply line really warm up to the tee. The unit cycles from 135 degrees on to 175 degrees off but has no capacity to sense if the motor is running or not. The packing instructions state to unplug the heater prior to starting. Well 1 hour and 45 minutes and I'll go out and see what the temp gauge says. In the mean time, I have a good excuse to cut patterns for my 14 bolt truss.