Continental A75 engine heater

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jesse

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Jesse
Winter is coming and I'm trying to figure out the best way for me to preheat the aircraft engine before flight.

I do get pretty good Verizon data at the hangar so I should be able to build something with a pre-paid Verizon cell phone to turn a 110 volt socket on and off remotely. Not too worried about that detail.

Tanis has a solution that heats each cylinder and the oil tank. The only real issue is cost: $420.

Are there any experimental options? I'd think it'd be pretty easy to find a heater to heat the oil tank with. But it seems like heating the cylinders is a pretty damn good idea as well and I can't think up a way to do that.

Edit: I guess a budget solution would be to just stick a high wattage incandescent bulb in the cowling and throw some blankets over it. Sometimes the most obvious solution isn't the most obvious solution at 6am. Although I'm sure the Reiff would be by far superior to this.
 
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Yup, stick-on heater for the oil. The stick-on should be available at a farm supply type place or just go with EZ Heat. Add one or two incandescent bulbs and you're good to go.

I just have a stick-on heater on the Frankenkota and since the sump is also the oil tank the rest of the engine gets heated also.
 
We used to use car warmers. $25 or so.

Dan
 
For a small engine, just plug up the cowl pretty good (blanket, etc) and use a magnetic automotive sump heater on the Verizon-switched outlet. Cost: $19.99.

B
 
I've used Tanis and Reiff. I think Bob Reiff is a bit of a jerk (at least he has been in my dealings), so my loyalty is to Tanis (who's been great).

That said, given your setup, I think you'd be best off with an old sleeping bag/army blanket over the engine and a 100W incandescent bulb. That should get the whole undercowling warm.
 
Stick on Oil pan heater hooked to a thermostat swich

Ive always used Kats Heaters and they work great.($20).they have 3M high temp aluminum sticky backing...just clean the oil pan with some MEK prior to intallation and seal the edges with HTemp silicone... I wouldnt go past 100W...you can even buy 2 50 watt "strips" and put one on each side.


I also use on of these $10 thermostat plug ins at the wall outlet....at 45 degrees its shuts off..below 35 it automatically turns on...plug your plane in after flying and that's all there is to it.
 
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the last (and only) time i flew the flybaby in cold weather, I got a small space heater at walmart and propped it up inside the cowling back against the firewall. i plugged the the cooling inlets and covered the whole thing in a blanket. it was nice and warm in the morning and started up good enough to get me on my crazy-ass trip to Beaumont, KS for lunch. Bonus was it didn't start on fire.
 
tonycondon said:
the last (and only) time i flew the flybaby in cold weather, I got a small space heater at walmart and propped it up inside the cowling back against the firewall. i plugged the the cooling inlets and covered the whole thing in a blanket. it was nice and warm in the morning and started up good enough to get me on my crazy-ass trip to Beaumont, KS for lunch. Bonus was it didn't start on fire.
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That's what I use (even though it's not a Fly Baby, and I didn't buy it at WallMart). Takes 15- 30 minutes or so to get everything under the cowl toasty warm.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
That's what I use (even though it's not a Fly Baby, and I didn't buy it at WallMart). Takes 15- 30 minutes or so to get everything under the cowl toasty warm.
Click to expand...

Please keep in mind that the undercowl feeling toasty warm isn't as important for longevity as the crank, bearings, pistons, etc feeling that way. That's why it's better to heat longer - get all the internals happy.
 
yea when i did that i let it run overnight
 
Jesse,

I installed the Reiff heat strips onto my kidney sump when I installed a new C-85 on my Cub. I did drill another small hole in the firewall so I could run the plug into the cockpit to plug it in since I don't have easy access under the split cowling.

It was worth every penny of the $120+. I plug it in ad in about an hour the oil is about 100 degrees indicated on the temp gauge. I can hardly ever get it that hot when I'm flying.

Mike-
 
The guy who was in my hangar before I took it over used an outdoor heater like the construction crews or football teams used and some ducting from the store to push the heat into the cowl. He said it took about 30 minutes to heat his engine of his 182.

I have oil pan and cylinder heaters so I have not tried not verified his claims. But his cost was under $200 is what he told me.
 
Northern Tools (perhaps elsewhere) have blanket heaters which might work for you for less $.

I use a GSMAUTO (a variant of which is available in the classified section here) which uses a cell phone to turn my Tannis on with a text message.
 
Tom-D said:
You best get it warmer than that.
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Can't do much about it, in the winter it's almost impossible. The exposed cylinders are the killer. It's a well-known Cub problem. In reality, I probably see 105-100, but it's nowhere near enough to boil off the moisture.

I try to mitigate it by at least flying for a good 45-60 minutes at 2,350 RPM to get it as warm as it's going to get.

Tom,

C
 
stearmann4 said:
Can't do much about it, in the winter it's almost impossible. The exposed cylinders are the killer. It's a well-known Cub problem. In reality, I probably see 105-100, but it's nowhere near enough to boil off the moisture.

I try to mitigate it by at least flying for a good 45-60 minutes at 2,350 RPM to get it as warm as it's going to get.

Tom,

C
Click to expand...
I plate over your oil cooler will help, as will winter kit on the cylinders.
 
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