Block Heater Wanted

I don't know how fast you expect it to work, but I've got a plug-type heater in my VW Rabbit diesel, and it takes a pretty long time to warm the engine up. On the order of at least a couple hours.

I had a '72 I.H. 4X4 when we lived on the Jicarillo Apache reservation and I installed a in-line heater called the "Chinook" which is no longer made. It worked fine since the I.H. had manual controls for the heater which your '85 Toy should have too. ( my '87 is also manual) It worked great down to 50°F below zero with an old sleeping bag draped over the engine.

The Chinook had two flapper valves that percolated the coolant through the heater and engine block. If you have found one like this please post back as I would like to buy one.

The designer of the Chinook said they went out of business because of the advent of vacuum controls which kept it from working right.

Jarhead

While not the same vehicle, I have the freeze plug-type heater installed on '03 Tundra and am very satisfied. What it does is warm things up enough that there are no ticking sounds on start-up, and the fast idle kicks off within a minute or so. It dosen't blow warm air right away, but it's faster than without. Anyway, it seems to do what I wanted- minimize effects of cold morning starts on the engine.

The heater had been plugged in for about 4-5 hours. jj

Thanks for the response. I will let you know if I hear of a Chinook heater becomes available. The the fellow at the parts store told me that this kind would not work because of the vacuum control heater. I didn't/don't know the difference; hence my questions. Thanks again. jj

What brand heater are you using? How many watts does it put out? jj

I have a 400w block heater package (block, oil, transmission) on my '03 4x2 Tundra SR5. I plug it in every night in the winter once we hit 20 above for a night time high (in interior Alaska with an average daytime high temperature of -20 or so actual). Except at higher temperatures, the block heater is going to have a minimal if any effect on how fast your engine and core will heat up and start blowing hot air into the cab.

The purpose of a black heater isn't to keep your eng>>

They still make that style, but that company (Chinook) might have gone belly up because they couldn't market to consumers - that's the type of block heater regularly used on fire trucks and standby diesel generators so they'll fire reliably on the first pull.

If I needed one, I'd get the thermostatically controlled "Tank Heater" version and just leave it plugged in all night, rather than trying to set a timer for a 4-hour pre-heat. Plus, what happens if someone gets sick and you need to go someplace at 2 AM?

You can bypass the vacuum heater valve to get water circulating through the heater core, or just install Y's in the heater hoses, skip running the car heater and just let it keep the block warm overnight.

When you start the car the coolant will be warm enough to get heater output pretty fast. Or get one of those Ceramic Furnace style 120V electric space heaters (something that doesn't get too hot in operation) and set it on a hunk of ceramic tile on the car floor - that one would benefit from a timer set to Commute Minus One Hour.

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Pyroil, 400w I think. I purchased it from the Toy dealer and had them install it too.