Ok folks, I think I have all the stuff in my head of what needs heaters, have not looked into a cab heater yet but may do that also.

I did see a note about a junction box under the hood so I'm going to ask the next question, just use a weatherproof good box for electrical like you would in a house? And then wire nut everything together, and use one cord out, correct AWG size, and plug in once, with everything connected to that cord?

This is kind of what I'm figuring. IIRC its 2 block heaters, oil pan, both batteries and the transmission plus a cab heater possibly. Not bus bar or fuse/breaker panel etc...?

Thanks, Jeff

Use a 4 square box with an industrial 4 plex cover. all the heater elements have a cord end that plugs into the 4 plex.
If you put a cab heater in you will blow the HBO breaker. Shoot for no more that 1100 watts.
It's easier to troubleshoot if all you have to do is unplug the loads one at a time.
Count on using a timer on the outlet you plug into, you only need to preheat for 2-3 hrs.

All you need to plug in oil pan, tranny, and battery pad:

https://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-Ligh...Pl=1&dpID=41KfTJDfiEL&ref=plSrch

Interior heater is great at preventing your dashboard from cracking from the cold. When I lived in North Pole I had these heaters on my GMC, oil pan, Transmission, block, battery blanket with pad and an interior heater. Wired it up like budman5 said and it worked great.

Got it, looks like I'll have 7 at a minimum but I knew I read J box type... may have to have 2 of them that way. 2 batteries, existing heater, 2 block heaters, one either side, transmission and oil pan. Damn that's a lot of cords. LOL.

Jesus. Are you going to Mcmurdo station?

Just use the factory block heater. No need to add 2 more.

+1

I use battery heat pad under battery, one block heater, oil pan heater, tranny heater.
About 600 watts. Make sure you use Arctic rated cords or the outer jackets will crack and brake off...

I remember in about 1954 in Fairbanks, we had a 51 Ford. Dad had a trickle charger under the hood and a headbolt heater.
When we lived in Anchorage in the 70s-80 I had a little oil pan heater on my air cooled VWs and fortunately they had SW gas heaters for the inside. In those days we used the heaters inline in the heaterhose on the water cooled vehicles. We were lucky to have heated garages, so not much trouble.
Now being a mechanic while I was there, we would put an old oil drain pan under cars that had set outside with a charcoal fire to heat the oil.

Not mc murdo, but it is a diesel. And it does not have block heater.... it has a heater but its in an oil something or another that's outside the block and really minimal. Since I've seen photos of -50ish I'd just as soon be safe.. LOL

Jeff-
What make and year rig? Factory heater? If it's a dipstick heater, get rid of it.

I have an'11 ford diesel. Starts fine without the plugin to-20. A little easier at that temp if plugged in for an hour. had diesels in Fbx set up w/ single block heater, battery heater,and oil pan. Trans was a little slow shifting until it warmed, but was fine once I got out of my road ~ 1/2 mile.

Don't over think it.

K, but I like belt and suspenders. LOL.

01 7.3 powerstroke. Some damn thing we replaced the o rings on on the side of the motor( not mechanic, just wrench turner remember...) has some heating device in it. Not the dipstick. This think has oil and antifreeze both in it.

This one is sluggish around freezing here unless I cycle the plugs a few times or plug it in.

May well be that a single block heater is fine.

Always figure one can put the stuff on now, down here, while its "warm" and I have a place to work on it easily, and not plug em all in if need be up there. LOL

Then again if I keep ignoring y'all the gate at the border might be closed when I get there.

I think I'd leave *that*heater unplugged and put it a real block heater.

Trickle charger w/ dual batts in stead of two heaters i something to consider. The heat is just to help provide full starting Vs. It would be one less plug.

Ok, one block heater through a freeze plug hole, don't worry about the ford heater, instead of second side block heater through a freeze plug, put in a trickle charger for batteries. Just to make sure I"m understanding the direction here.

Yup. Plus oil pan.

You need enough jolts to glow, crank, and start. Also need to create oil pressure quickly. Them's the minimum. Everything else is gravy.

Jeff-
Do what makes you comfortable and you need to do. I just think you are overthinking this.

I can be guilty of that.While I don't wear a belt and suspenders my mind works that way...

Synthetic lube, a block heater, and a charge on the batt's and you're golden. If you have the watts to spare, and oil pan heating pad ain't a bad thing. We put hard miles on 7.3's up north, and so equipped some have almost 300k on them.

Jeff

Back in the dinosaur days in Alaska, we used Amzoil. Worked well.

I would not forgo the battery blanket, the last thing you want is for your battery to crack at sub zero temps. I use to be the guy that repaired every single battery that belonged to any AF related site (except Eielson) in Alaska and the amount of cracked batteries I had come in during the winter was stupid. Contrary to what many believe, sulfuric acid will freeze when it hits the right temp (37°) and when it does, it could expand the case enough to crack it. Seen that more times than I cam count.

7.3 will have full synthetic by the time I leave. Has synthetic oil and trans currently.

Gonna just go the overkill route, easier to put in and never plug in now, than need later on...

Kinda figuring too, can have one cord for "cool" and plug in rest for "cold"...

A battery with undamaged plates/cells and fully charged, won't freeze at -37, let alone +37.

I don't understand your post, John.

You are correct that a fully charged battery will not freeze but if they are partially discharged at all they will. I've seen it first hand on hundreds of batteries. How do you know when a batteries plates haven't been damaged or become contaminated with minerals or other foreign substances? The answer is when your battery will no longer hold a charge, gets hot or consumes electrolyte (sulfuric acid/water) and with todays maintenance free batteries you don't know it's low until it's too late. And never run tap water in your batteries (non-maintenance free), use distilled water, the minerals in tap water will adhere to the plates and over time cause them to lose their ability to generate electricity (and get hot) and that will shorten its life span.

I still have a few quarts of Conoco DN600 in the garage. that was the go to oil on the slope in the 70's.

I feel that an oil pan heater is a must infact I’d take a oil pan heater over a block heater. A trickle charger or a wrap heater for the battery.

Having had a vehicle with only an oil pan heater, I will disagree.

+100

Same here. With modern lubes, it's a non issue. Fully charged battery, and a warm engine, and you're good to go.

Jeff,

Getting back to your original question, yeah any water proof J box will fit your needs BUT you'd better watch your wattage on whatever heaters you do install.

I don't know where you plan to plug all this crap in but a single 20 amp breaker has its limits.

For 20 AMP you have 20A*120V or 2400 watts and 15 AMP you have 15A*120V or 1800 watts. Good Electricians will only plan for 80% load so you have 1920 and 1440 watts respectively at your disposal per circuit.

My experience has been that most block/oil pan/battery blanket type heaters pull between 750 to 1400 watts each.

Extension cords are notorious for voltage drop or loss. When you only have say 100 volts at the working end of a 100 ft extension cord it increases the amp draw, if that makes sense to you. If it don't look it up, you'll find charts online showing how much the amp load increases as the available voltage drops. It's simple math.
A cord can read 120 volts until the load is applied and then it drops like a hammer.

A good 12ga cord or even build yourself a 10ga cord for the job can help limit this voltage loss.

So lets say you install two or three different heaters, plug them all in and it works, the breaker you're using holds....Keep in mind most of those heaters are thermostatically controlled..... So at 3 in the morning when it gets colder than hell and all the heaters you installed are digging in full bore ..... bam, ya blow the breaker for the circuit your extension cords plugged into and ya got nothing when you need it the most.

All that work you did installing up-teen heaters completely backfires on you.

Unless you plan on installing your own power plant in the bed of that truck to run all the heaters off of ya need to take to heart what these guys are sayin' and don't try and go over kill... not even a little bit. Keep your batteries in good shape and you'll be fine on them, never used more than a solar trickle charger for that.

Worse case scenario I've seen for guys insisting on the use of diesel pickups in remote areas with subzero temps with no available power they just built a fire and shoveled hot coals under the engine compartment and waited it out.

I'm good enough with power, I"ll have separate dedicated circuits if need be.

I"m guessing my buddy that lives there that has a few of the heaters, has low amp heaters.

But I'm not totally ignoring all this. Just really the type that would rather put em there and not need to plug it all in, than all of a sudden its bad cold and I need em.

Speaking of that instant load..... reminds me of summer here, which is about equal of your winters, in power loads, and having power go out and us having to refuse the lines once the issue was sorted out. Learned really quickly you better not try to refuse a whole line, you better pull all the doors out, fuse the line, then close doors one at time since everyones every last fridge/freezer and central air was going to be pulling load instantly. Bang. LOL.

Great posts. My kid is moving up to Fairbanks next week and will need to set up his F150. Any recommendations on what the wattage needs to be on the oil pan and transmission heaters? He already has a block heater installed.

I use only OEM block heaters and no other heaters as I've had too many worn and damaged wires shorting out.

Start that engine and let it idle with transmission in NEUTRAL so as to circulate the fluid.

I've also had bad experiences with Auto Start.

A heated garage ain't all bad!

Dual stock block heaters should be all you need and a 0-30 oil

Jeff, you should probably get one of these and just be done with it: Webasto

LMAO!! But they said it won't be in by Christmas.

I sure appreciate you folks humoring me along. Trust me its tough having never seen much less than about -15 or 20 basically and being used to flipping 100 or more possible any month of the year and damn near guaranteed 6 or more months.

Merry Christmas folks!

You need to do all of the heating methods on the 7.3L It wasn't a good cold weather starting engine.
MM879

Gee. I wish someone had told me that before I had one in Fairbanks.

I've always bought what fits the largest flat surface on the pan without making an sharp bends. (Figuring the less stress you place on the pad, the less likely they'd start flapping on an edge.) I don't think they're very much wattage as I recall.

I use another - probably 75W- pad which I wrap around the battery, not attached, and the a couple wraps of alum/mylar bubble wrap black-taped around the battery. (I don't like the idea of a battery sitting on a pad; too much to go wrong IMO.)

Tranny also needs a pad. If you're too cheap to feed it a few watts, just buy another tranny and see what that costs.

NAPA has the pads you need, if the local hardware doesn't.

When my girl kid went to fbx with a car, we put a trickle charger, and oil pan heater on it. IIRC, it would have required lifting the engine to put a frost plug heater in it.

As long as the trunk is fully shut (and the trunk light is off) it starts and runs fine.

Worked fine for me in Alaska for 7 years, North Dakota, Michigan, Wyoming, etc in below zero temperatures.

Get a weed burner and an old exhaust elbow off a tractor.

You will be unstoppable!

My concerns would be with the glow plug system. The system has lots of parts in high stressed areas, inside the engine. If everything is connected and working correctly the system is effective. When you are down to one glow plug working at 25% at -20F it will be a long day.
MM879

And what is essentially a breakdown situation is how you run your system?

Mine would fail to start long before I was down to one gp.

IIRC, the rule of thumb was if three of them are dead, replace them all.

Are we supposed to think that a passive revelation was an effort to sneak something by..,.? 😎


“Do you see that spot on the frosty roof of the car where there is none? And you’re still saying that you didn’t leave the dome light on when you were looking for your wallet last night? I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with the Autostart. Find the charger, Son. “ 😇

I don't want to write a specification on Glow Plug control systems. I do enough of that at work. Attached is a link to a supplier of glow plugs that discusses basic operation and service procedures. This should get you started.
https://www.accuratediesel.com/gplugs.htm

MM879

Well it was a trunk light so not visible. Rain had frozen the gasket and would not open completely. Likewise could not close completely.

Then being gone for two weeks really really killed the battery.

Good link!

I'm not associated with that company. Just a good explaination of the system used on the 7.3L engines.

I'm retired Chrysler 41 years in electrical engineering. The diesel systems I've worked on are the Bosch used on Cummins and Fiat diesel engines.
MM879

It always amazes me some of the stuff they come up with on vehicles these days........... or at least the stuff made in the last couple of decades - that's "these days" in my vocabulary .

Then again, it sometimes amazes me the stuff that isn't thunk of and delivered. Why doesn't the trunk light automatically turn off after a short period like some of the interior lights do?

A lot of thoughts never get thought in the vehicle design process it seems. Like having a swinging door with a ledge directly under the door... think swinging tailgate and bumper for example. A great way to seriously ding the bottom edge of the door...

I ran a diesel in the coldest places of the interior. Cummins start better than fords when real cold but I still ran two block heaters, one on each side. Tranny pan heater and 2 oil pan heaters one on each side. Plus battery pad heaters. I honestly didn’t plug my dodge in til it got below 10 below due to laziness but many a -50 or colder starts and never had any issues. Don’t skimp on heaters, do it right and some can be spliced together so you don’t need a breaker panel under the hood. A frozen diesel is a bitch to get started! Heated garages are tits for living up there, when we were house shopping the first thing I did at every single house we looked at was check to see if my truck fit in the garage (2500 long bed). If it didn’t fit we moved on to the next house on the list. But working as a fireman my truck would sit for 2 or 3 days at a time outside before being started.

The standard joke was to buy a heated garage with an attached home.

And turn the master bedroom into your reloading and gear room!

Maybe skin a wolf in there because the garage is too full.

There really should be rules about passively sneaking admissions and revelations into these forums.................... moderator?

Uh... I question your definition of passive!

Never before have I been accused being passive.....

But anyway back to the thread........when in hell is Rost making this trip?

Soon to be spring here.

I'll bet I could find much to appreciate about your home and lifestyle then.

Spring? I hope you didn't waste the extra 12 seconds of daylight we had today.

Twas nice and warm this evening however according to my wife; she, a Texas-born Yup'ik, hates cold but felt -9 was adequate in heat to comment about the warmth. I had to point out that FBX ain't the same as -9 out in typical Yup'ik country.

Don't forget to attach a bib to your grill. The one time I forgot to run one on an old Cummins truck, the grid heater kept cycling and staying on, even with a piece of cardboard in front of radiator. Forgot that the intercooler wasn't protected, and an air temp sensor tripped the grid heater to stay on. Lost battery charge and lights between salcha and north pole at 50 below. That 6bt motor ran some 25-30 miles with no battery. I had a trickle charger wired to a three-way plug, along with an oil pan heater and block heater. Had an unexpected stay in sht-hole-North pole. Plugged it in all night. By morning, the trickle charger gave enough charge to get back home. Was still cold, so just taped off the entire grill with duct tape, until I had finished making a bib. Damn diesels, cold blooded madness in the cold. While my neighbor with a half ton gas truck had a 30 minute plug in, and a warm cab 10 minutes later. I always needed at least 2hrs plugged in, and 20 mins idle for a luke- warm cab. Installed new Bosch injectors at 240,000 miles. Didn't change a thing with that cold blooded, smelly rattle trap. Fuel economy went up though.
Make sure your coolant isn't 50/50 mix by the time you hit northern B.C. I have pictures of my coolant looking like a green slushy at 57 below, I was pretty sure it was 60/40 mix.
I'm leery of battery blankets and don't use one. Napa has a nice 2.3 amp trickle charger that you can mount to your inner fender, wire right to battery.

All questions answered!

LOL hopefully in early April, BUT I want it done, as by the time I"m done working it will be fall/winter season and I want it to cover the next full winter there...
Hasn't been cold enough in Delta to matter yet this year. LOL

I was at BSI on Friday and snapped you a picture...



You probably don't need quite that many. Grin.

Fia makes a good weather front system for cold weather with a screen version for summer.

Unfolded beer boxes behind the grill are your huckleberry!

Jeff would get by with just three!

I got me one from/ in tok....dumpster dive'd me a eds pizza box ...life was good !

As far as traine heaters go....the newer ones with all the electronics...some times don't get along well with a pan of hot warm oil ...and a big converter full of 40 below oil....

2. No more than 2. But maybe a third as a spare. LMAO

You sure are homesteading a simple question!

Stop being the grinch up in here!

Grinch is gone till next year. LOL

And y'all laugh about beer/pizza boxes... ONE time it was +3 here, and coming home from deer hunting we had to stop and find a beer flat in the back, to put up front of the radiator. You can bet that doesn't happen in south central TX very often.

Jag saysit's always cold there when he's hunting. Like blizzards and chit. Every. Time. I think.

LMAO. Spencer has had the misfortune to come home from Wasilla a few times when it was warmer in Wasilla than it was here. In October it was warmer in Delta at 60, than it was at home that day for a high of 40... LOL

Blizzards we don't have. Chit we do.

We may not be as advanced as some parts of the lower states, but we are in the digital age in spite of the fact that some folks here are still getting up to speed on rules concerning traffic. Therefore, make sure you are well practiced in digital sign language - it works better than lip reading through closed and frosty windows....... just in case you decide rules are only for the other idiots on the road. 😝

Oh, and remember, water is easier to remove from the fuel system before it it hits the injectors in solid form. 😎

oh joy. One more thing to remember. While adding motor oil to each tank of diesel for the lube thats missing... LOL

I used to add 2-stroke oil to the fuel in my 7.3.

Thats what I used to ad, but it got kind of hard to find here at times, and instead of ordering a case, google showed that regular old quart of oil to a tank would do basically the same...

A trucking company mechanic told me 2 stroke was better as it's designed to be combusted.

Probably makes little difference. Can't use either in a newer truck anyway.

Oh I believe the 2 stroke thing... Walmart locally just did not have reliable stocks and now only stocks high dollar 2 stroke oil here. I should likely find some other brand and just order a couple of cases of quarts and be done with it. Just get off 24 hour a bit and make something happen. LOL