Propane heater

I am thinking about adding a propane heater and getting rid of my heat exchangers. How much clearance do I need around the heater? Is there a lot of heat thrown off from the sides?

Not too much. About two inches is fine. I did melt a hole in my spinner head, and a burn spot on my vacuum.

Why do you not like HX anymore Tim. Did it freeze up on you?

The only time I've seen it shoot flame out of the bottom is if it doesn't light right away scared the crap out of the first time it did that. Now if I can't get it lit right away I stop turn the dial to the off position and wait a  bit and try it again.

When I spoke to little giant a while they didn't really recommend that the LG be off the ground and you didn't really need a lot of clearance space around the heater.

There have been cleaners that added electronic ignition to theirs so that you don't to have light it manually or worry about the flame turning off. 

That reminds me I need to invite Fred Savage to the forum. He used to manufacture the Savage line of ETMs and knows a lot about external heaters

Mo, I have a Boxxer 427 and my coolant heat exchanger crapped out years ago, I took it out and I have had plenty of heat. But over the last year or so, I have been having issues with my exhaust heat exchanger and the Boxxer is know for blowing head gasket because of the back pressure caused by running the blower exhaust and engine exhaust through the same exchanger. I just replaced my engine a few months ago and I want to get rid of the heat exchange and use an external heat source

Have you had the Hx. cleaned at a radiator shop. That may clear the back pressure problem up. Where did you get a engine replacement or is it a rebuild. The reason I ask is because Briggs stopped making the 27hp liquid cooled and HM. had to change to the 35hp air cooled engine there is a upgrade kit for the 427's but I know there still a few engines around.
And your right about the HX. on the 427's if anything gets past the waste tank / filters and through the blower it gets caught in the HX>

ACE Services wrote:Have you had the Hx. cleaned at a radiator shop. That may clear the back pressure problem up. Where did you get a engine replacement or is it a rebuild. The reason I ask is because Briggs stopped making the 27hp liquid cooled and HM. had to change to the 35hp air cooled engine there is a upgrade kit for the 427's but I know there still a few engines around.
And your right about the HX. on the 427's if anything gets past the waste tank / filters and through the blower it gets caught in the HX>

I found a 27hp briggs on E-Bay. There was a restoration company in California that had a few of them sitting it the warehouse. How reliable is the air cooled engine for the replacement? and is there any real modifications that have to be done to make it fit?

When I went to HM school a couple of years ago they were showing us the conversion kit from 27 hp liquid cooled to the 31 hp air cooled I said 35 hp but it's 31hp and as I recall the main thing that changed was coolant Hx is removed. Then the rest was mainly after the radiator is removed the space between the front of the unit and front of engine has to be closed in so the engine will pull the cool air in from outside.
As far as being reliable well they HM still make it, it's just called Boxxer XL instead of Boxxer 427. I don't know the cost you can call HM ask for customer support Dennis Russell and talk to him

Have you considered a Northstar heater? I had one in the family shop and that thing put out a ton of heat. A little heavy, but you could set it in a small trailer and bring it along when needed.

hey Mo.....

its bob savage....
fred savage was an actor

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000625/

LOL that's right the wonder years.

We have to invite Bob over here.

I don't know, what is Fred Savage doing these days?  He might be a good cleaner?