Musso Filter Heater

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

I am thinking of putting a heater around my Musso's fuel filter.

Has anyone already done this or could suggest a simple method? Should I go 12V heater pad or something t'eed off the heater hose?

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

Much easier to put a heater in-line with the fuel supply to the lift pump. Get some 5 mm OD copper pipe and some 19 mm OD copper pipe and 2, 19 mm ID tees. Silver solder the tees onto a piece of copper pipe ~150 mm long so they each have one end of the top of the tee onto this piece of copper pipe and add a 30 mm piece of 19 mm copper pipe to the leg of each Tee and to the other end to the top of each tee. Thread the 5 mm pipe thru from one end to the other, crimp down the 19 mm copper pipe onto the 5 mm pipe at both ends. Then silver solder the fittings together, making sure all joints are water tight.
connect coolant pipes to the 19 mm pipes and fuel hoses to the 5 mm pipes. Bleed air out and start the engine. The coolant will heat the fuel in the 5 mm copper pipe on its way to the lift pump and thence to the fuel filter.
Basically, the 5 mm copper pipe takes a straight path thru the 19 mm pipe, the coolant comes in and out of this heat exchanger from the side ports.

Not hard to make and simple to connect (heater hoses go to the firewall on the LHS of the engine bay)
Best of all it is easily restored to stock if you don't like it, or if you wish to transfer it to another vehicle.

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

Thanks Tony,

Do you have a picture of one?

[Qwarla Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Qwarla]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

Have a look here.

Condenser, heat exchanger ..... same thing.

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

I thought about this today and if you do not need a lot of heat, then recovering the heat from the return line would help raise the temperature of the oil going to the fuel filter.
You could use 2 copper pipes of the same size (5 or 8 mm OD depending on the fuel hose ID in your vehicle). Simply bend one end of each pipe so that when they are joined, you can get a hose on each end of each pipe. Solder the copper pipes together. The hot fuel returning to the tank heats the oil coming from the fuel tank by a few degrees (I have not done tests to quantify this).
If you really need to ensure that the fuel filter is kept clear of solidifying oil, then the heat exchanger in the post above would be better.

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

Thanks Tony, I still can't picture what you are meaning. I know there are simple pipe heat exchangers you can buy but they are too large (1"). Maybe a 12 plate heat exchanger would do the job?

[Qwarla Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Qwarla]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

I built one using 3/4 and 1/2 inch copper, readily available from Bunnings or any other hardware shop.

Here's a pic.
It consists of 6 pieces. The 3/4 tube, 4 pieces of 1/2 inch tube, and 2 reducing T's. To get the straight through 1/2 inch to pass through the reducing T's, it is necessary to slightly file the hole larger. The rest is just as it appears.

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Musso Filter Heater


Click on Thumbnail image to view full sized image.

This can be installed to take coolant in one pipe (use appropriate sized copper pipe for heater hoses) and fuel in the other. In this case the fuel copper pipe needs to have a bend at each end to allow fuel hoses to fit (harder to bend the larger pipe than the small one).

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

That makes a lot more sense now. Off to Bunnings. Thanks Tony.

I did also see these. They have good internal surface area but too big for a vehicle.

https://packless.com/products/refrig...hangers/hxr-50

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

How did you go making one?

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

I spent a bit of time yesterday planning where it would go. Given the way the fuel hoses travel on open space next to the engine, probably a fixture on the firewall would be needed to safely carry the weight of it.

While I was there, I did think about the possibility of simply lagging the metal section of the fuel line to the return line where they both travel in parallel. However, after a bit of driving around, I found that the return line was not noticeably warmer than the feed line so this probably won't do anything. The heater hoses were plenty warm though.

What did occur to me then is that even heating the line against the firewall, it still has a long way to travel through fuel hose and then that thin but of nylon hose between the lockout valve and the pump. It then goes into a fuel filter that is sitting behind the radiator fan (sort of) so it is possible all the heat we put in would be lost.

So my next thought is to look up one of those 12V silicone heater wraps/pads they have on ebay (with a thermostat apparently) and put a small wind deflector in front of the fuel filter.

[Macz Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Macz]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

Try a home brewers flat plate wort chiller. 20 plate works well. Easy to set up and very space efficient.
There are also heated fuel filters (electric plus coolant) about on ebay sometimes. They were used in UN diesel vehicles operating in sub zero temperatures.

[penangke Member Find all posts View Profile Close penangke]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

Hi Chev.
I have two mussos running now with the ELsbett single tank system. Each convsrsion cost $1100 including postage from Germany ( $100 cheaper -free postage - if you buy it around Christmas time).
I built my first SVO, two tank system in 2002 for a toal cost of about $50 using whatever. Cost a lot in stress though.
ELsbett is pretty much stress free once you get it set up properly, (For me anyhow)
One musso has done 40,000 k and the other 10,000 k My wife has done most of the driving in the first one. I like to stay home!
Jim

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

Thanks everyone for the ideas.

This is the first stage. A wind deflector installed around the front of the fuel filter. I made it from some of that bracket material they sell at Bunnings (grown up's Mechano that I use to fabricate all sorts of things in a hurry) covered with some black carbon fibre-look vinyl wrap (to go faster) and edged with that rubber door edging stuff. The bracket material was cut to size and bent to shape. I can remove it to take a better photo if someone wants to make the same thing.

No problems last week while driving on the highway in icy winds near Canberra.

To finish the project though, I will now to install a 12 heater wrap bought from eBay and wired using one of those spotlight looms also from eBay that include the switch fuse and wiring all together.

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Musso Filter Heater

Consider looping the return line from the filter back into the feed line from the fuel tank. The hot oil will be recirculated back into the filter, picking up more heat from the lift pump.
The downside of this is that if you run the tank dry or change the fuel filter, you will need to bleed the air out, as it would normally be sent back to the fuel tank. A 3 port valve could be used to change from "Return to tank" or /"Looped to filter".
Insulating the fuel lines from the lift pump to the filter and back to the IP would help now that you have stopped the icy wind coming onto the filter.