heating engine for winter

The problem is that even a *big* 12V battery only holds about one kilowatt-hour of energy, which is unlikely to get you far. Also, you'd need to recharge this battery from the mains each day, as I doubt you run your LR for long enough to do it from the alternator.

So, no, as far as I know there isn't any option other than (a) mains or (b) liquid fuel.

My advice to you John is to bite the bullet and by a Webasto or an Eberspacher, read the installation instructions thoroughly and then fit it. They are so easy to fit once you have understood the instructions. Take time to look at all angles, location, exhaust, coolant lines, fuel lines and most importantly location below the header tank - if coolant gets too low the the heater becomes air-locked. I know they are expensive, but your engine and your wife would be so much happier!!!! Mine is connected to an on board 7 day timer, its a Webasto TSL17

Ok, I have mine inthe Disco 300 not a boat. But I will always fit one to every vehicle I ownfrom now on, fantastic bits of kit. Alistair

Nearly always diesel eberspachers on ebay. Just search for eberspacher.

Rich

Tip: there's a bigger choice, and IMO often lower prices, for Eberspachers at ebay.de than ebay.co.uk. But if you're searching at ebay.de, you need to put an umlaut on the "a" in Eberspächer.

Hi, we run vehicles in NE Europe every winter often parking overnight in temperatures as low as -35c. With some preparation you can make a low cost short term solution using the heat from the engine and preserving it as much as possible. I presume its the early 90 so I'll describe what worked with one of these, a petrol as it happened but we did something similar with a diesel Discovery.

First we made an insulation blanket for the underbonnet, the bulkhead (tailored) and the inner wings down to the chassis rails. A layer of foil to stop radiated heat and some fireproof insulation wadding to coddle the engine compartment. This was all cable tied as a seasonal fitting (in fact we kept it all year round and it cut down the engine noise considerably!)

The front of the engine bay was sealed by a stiff cardboard slide that slid down the front of the radiator and a roll down radiator blind that covered front of the grille.

If the vehicle was going to be left either where a draught or wind might blow under or for more than six or seven hours oiled hardboard shields fitted under the engine mounts to the ground on each side and at the front to stop air movement and a large shaped 'duvet' of rockwool in a flame retardent treated cover was tucked over the top and down the front, back and sides of the engine.

Sounds a lot but after a couple of times we could set up or stow this ery quickly.

A local mod to preserve a mass of hot water was made and installed by a Russian fitter. Behind the bulkhead he plumbed in a tank of about four gallons capacity and with three inches of insulation (ply casing filled with aerosol foam). It had an air bleed valve in the top and a filler / pressure cap. I think I recollect correctly that this tank was part of the primary cooling (only more a case of heating in this case!) circuit. A secondary heater was plumbed and wired in to warm the rear compartment.

These measures worked a treat, our usual drill was to take out the cardboard radiator screen, lift off the 'duvet' and remove the under vehicle screens if set up. We then started up and the heater was blowing hot air soon after. We seldom rolled up the external rad blind unless we were driving hard for more than twenty miles or so.

Hope that helps! OM