Heater Install in a 1989 Supra Comp

Attachment 18472 Attachment 18473

Nicely done!! Wife loves the heater on our 242 and now wants one in the Rider.
Guess I shouldn’t have shown her these pics. :mad:

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Originally Posted by Cooose

I'm putting one in my Saltare rebuild. It's pretty straight forward. If you winterize your own boat then you can probably tackle it yourself. You can pick up one of the kits or just pick up a heater core from Napa and put a sheet metal box around it and plumb the heater up.

There are some decent diy videos out there that cover most everything you would need to know. Check them out and if you decide to tackle it just keep the thread going and share some pics and ask questions if you get stuck.

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Are these DIY options ignition protected? Super important for a boat installation.


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Not sure what you mean by "ignition protected". Can you clarify?

anything in a marine application that can create spark, like the alternator, ballast or bilge pumps, starter, distributor, starter solenoids, and blower need to be marine-specific with ignition protection. gasoline fumes can build up in the motor area and if any of these parts aren't ignition protected, a spark from one of them can start a fire. pretty sure the #1 cause of fires on a boat is the use of non-marine parts, which save people money but can have catastrophic consequences.

i'm not sure where the heater core gets installed in a project like this, so my apologies if it's not in the engine compartment in which case my points are moot. still good things to always have in mind though :)

Thanks for the info... I'm not 100% sure but I think most applications would mount the heater core outside of the engine compartment. I had mine installed at a marine dealership and I'm sure that the Heater Craft unit was designed for the marine application. Good to know though...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cooose

I'm putting one in my Saltare rebuild. It's pretty straight forward. If you winterize your own boat then you can probably tackle it yourself. You can pick up one of the kits or just pick up a heater core from Napa and put a sheet metal box around it and plumb the heater up.

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I made my own for my Saltare. Foudn teh biggest off the shelf heater core I could (I believe it was for a '79 Ramcharger) and made a box. Welded 2x 4" tings on teh back for blower motors to push air through it, and 3x 3" rings on the front for the hot tubes. Piece of cake. Kept the in/out low on the box how I mounter it so winterizing is easy, but disconnect the hoses from intake and suction side fo raw water pump and blow through the hose until nothing comes out. Seat heaters are a great addition too!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cadunkle

I made my own for my Saltare. Foudn teh biggest off the shelf heater core I could (I believe it was for a '79 Ramcharger) and made a box. Welded 2x 4" tings on teh back for blower motors to push air through it, and 3x 3" rings on the front for the hot tubes. Piece of cake. Kept the in/out low on the box how I mounter it so winterizing is easy, but disconnect the hoses from intake and suction side fo raw water pump and blow through the hose until nothing comes out. Seat heaters are a great addition too!

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what was the approximate cost for this and would you consider reproducing the boxes for these?

I want to say it was about $156.21, as per my thread here: https://forum.supraboats.com/showthr...-homemade-heat

Probably $200-ish if I ever add pull out "hot tubes" rather than jamming blower hose up my shirt or pants. I checked RockAuto and AUtozone, 1980 RamCharger heater cores for no air conditioning seem to be NLA... Better take care of mine. There are other slightly smaller heater cores available for about $30 so there are options when custom making. For me to make these there wouldn't be enough money in it, I could make the design better doing it again, but I'd be around the same price at off the shelf heaters for maybe a slightly bigger heater.

gotcha, thanks for the response and the link to your other thread, i had missed that one.