11 November 08 Ceramic 1500 Watt Heater Install
We now have the electric heater installed. Not a bad job getting it swapped out. Very good tip for you here--> Go to Autozone to get instructions on removing it. They have a computer you can use to print instructions on how to do stuff with drawings or photos. Sorry I didn't take any photos. My bad but I'll attempt to "picture" it for you.The "kit" is essentially a block of white (polyethylene?) plastic about 12" square, a ceramic heater element common to many $25 120volt electric 1500watt heaters, 20A fuse and holder, a few screws, Anderson connector to kill the power for servicing, some rather vague instructions and a DC contactor rated for at least 20amps with a 12V coil. The heater element is about 4.5" square and 1.5" thick.
Cut the plastic to fit over the space where the old heater core was, then cut out a hole for the air to blow through the element and bolt the element to the plastic plate. We made two brackets to go from side to side using the two holes in the top and bottom for the old heater core straps as the new screw holes for the straps. These straps will hole the element and plate in place. It took a while for us to figure out a means to secure the plate to the housing!
For wiring there are 5 terminals. We opted to use high temp appliance wire available from our local appliance repair parts dealer. We used crimp terminals for the connections but I suppose you could solder the wires to the terminals and cover with shrink wrap. You'll connect the two end terminals along with the middle one together. Then connect the other two together. One of those connections goes to the - side of your pack and the other comes off the pack + through the heater contactor.
They recommend the control wiring only allow the heater contactor to be energized when the ignition is on and the fan is on high. I read somewhere however that the heater element is somehow self regulating and the fan need not be on high. They tested theirs with the fan on all speeds and found the more air blowing across it the more current it used thus the more heat it produced. I'll have to verify that of course at some point as I haven't wired the contactor just yet. I really don't want to have to keep switching the fan on and off at full blast to control the heat!
Caution: Be sure if your contactor has the two power terminals exposed that you enclose it inside a box or such. When the contactor is off you will have pack voltage across those two terminals! 120V DC can be LETHAL, much more so than AC and will explosively melt metal if the terminals are accidentally shorted!
Good luck with your and hope this helps. It's beginning to get cold!
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