Some pics of my Disco :D

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what are you gona rug that up to?
 
Yo daz,I already told you, you win the Internet! What a great prize!! :)

And yeah I saw an advert for hotshot last year which got me thinking about it for this year (my screen wash was freezing as it was coming out of the jets and it was not to my liking to use neat) but when I saw the frankly stupid prices it obviously put me right off. I mean how on earth do they expect to sell a single one of them for £180 quid???

As for the element heater, I had thought about that kind of idea too. However, let me roll through my thought process.

An electric heater is about 100 watts maximum, but my other heat source is about 160 horsepower and has plenty of heat going spare!! :D

SO I'm thinking do I heat the tank or the pipes? A lot of Mercedes have a hot water coil in the tank, which would work nicely but being a Mercedes it's probably thermostatically controlled etc. my land rover would simply be a coil of copper pipe boshed through a hole int' top ot' reservoir. All good in the winter I thought but not really ideal for the summer when I've got my screen wash tank getting to 100 degrees and boiling over whilst melting the pumps.

So the other option is heating the flow from the pump. I need not worry about the tank freezing because I can easily protect down to minus 10 even with 50/50 screen wash mix. Plus once the engine is running its a very ****ing hot sauna in there. So that'll keep things toasty.

The current plan should work nicely. That aluminium heat exchanger will get to about 85 degrees engine temp, and should heat the screen wash to around 40 maybe? Not too sure but itll certainly be nicely warm. Quite a few coils there so it will probably work well.

I'm going to fit some better jets (fan type) to spread the water over the screen instead of 2 jets, one dribble and a wet area which I currently put up with.

Because of the system design, the whole pipework is under the bonnet and plenty of heat comes off the v8 and exits at the rear of the bonnet so that should stop the pipes freezing, really it's just the windchill that froze the spray as it came out last year.

Sounds good eh?

And yes mad git I do love a gadget or ten, keeps me happy :)
 
Sorry mark, missed your Q. The fat pipe is cut into the heater hose running to the heater matrix, and the thin pipe is cut into the screeneash pipe running to the jets!

Cheers :)
 
Can't ya just take the heated jets from a RRC?
never had an issue with mine...in fact its one of the few things that I've not had an issue with!!

Think I'll go for the front QT to match the rear, the point about washing is a crackin one, cheers :)
 
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Yo daz, on the v8 the heater pipes run from the back of the pump and over the drivers side rocker cover to the heater matrix inlet on the bulkhead. There is about a 9 inch rubber portion between bulkhead and rocker cover, so I'm gonna try and slot it in there!

Joe, heated jets from RRC you say? Hmmm good idea! The weak link would be frozen jets, as I posted about I am looking to replace the jets so maybe RRC would be just right.

Also yes the qt type is the only option when it comes to protection and rot prevention!

Cheers :)
 
What about brake copper brake pipe wound around the rad pipes as an experiment. I know the pipes fit together as I have some copper pipe in a plastic bottle and connected washer pipe to it to make a self bleeder for the brakes.

Better still you could wrap around exhaust headers with insulated bandage to control the heat. Well perhaps not
 
Brake pipe would work, but it doesn't have a large bore so the flow would be stifled. Also, rad pipes don't get hot for a while, whereas the heater pipes are circulating from first start.

I tried with 6mm copper pipe because I wanted to use the redundant headlamp wash pump for a super flow system, kinda windscreen jet wash for extra muddy washes, but it wouldn't coil tight enough :(

This was happy medium, but first I need to try it and see if the idea works!
 
Did you have it made up then? If so it looks great. What about using a similar thing that when connected to the house warms the engine ready for a journey and when the engine is running it warms the washer water.

There you go another great idea. Commission is accepted in any payment form ......
 
Cheers for the links Sean, yeah I can get jets fair easy, but the thing with the disco is they are mounted at a funny angle, mounted vertical and shooting up the screen whereas most cars are bonnet mount, also not a lot of room for big jets. Will see :)

Also what the deal with the 405 arms mate? I fitted aero blades to mine, Bosch do the upgrade, was only about 7 quid each and much better wipe IMO.

Ian, I actually bought this one after failing to manufacture by hand. I am looking to make them providing I can find a suitable tubing. I will also make a heavy duty one with extra flow if I can again manage it.

Regards your millionaire idea :) there is a small technical issue, in that in order to heat the engine you would need circulation aswell as heat exchange.

The other issue is that if you were to open up your home heating system you would have to bleed it every time.

The other option is a heat exchanger in your central heating circuit, a circulation pump to circulate your water through hosepipes to outside, and then another heat exchanger on the engine circuit.

You would then either have to fit an electric circulation pump to the engine or an electric motor to drive the existing water pump (ideal). This is quite easy on a V belt engine (3.5 or 200tdi) but not as easy on a serp engine due to single belt.

As you can see its a right faff to set it all up. Kenlowe do a hot start thingy which is a heater and pump in one, and you simply plug your car into the mains, via a timer unless you're super rich.

I'll send you a prop spacer as payment. It got moved from the shelf to the radiator today, which means its a step closer to a jiffy bag.

Should make it to the post office tomorrow!
 
405 arm/blades, as do many others have 4 or so jets mounted along their length - so the fluid comes out just ahead of the blade
 
I didn't mean to connect to heating system from home.mi meant to plug in electrical socket and have a small pump and heater in the item that would circulate the water through the engine and warm the washer fluid.

So where shall I fit the spacer first. Rear prop?
 
Oh right I see, groovy! I was gonna mount some 6mm nylon tubing along the arms to do the same sort of thing, but I thought exposed tube like that would freeze up dead easy. At least as it is the system is concealed so should be reasonably resistant to freezing!
 
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