liquid to liquid heat exchanger for on board warm/hot water

Hope you are having an epic time in Moab @ebarrere !

Please share photos, of both your work and your trip!

Sorry I couldn't snap this photo in time to help @ebarrere, but I'm finally working on the truck again, so for the benefit of others in the future, here are the heater hoses we were discussing above:



Looks like I tapped into the lower heater core (inlet? outlet?) hose, which becomes the upper of the two hoses after the bends routing them along the firewall. (Indicated by the red arrow.)

My diverter valve is indicated by the orange arrow. For what its worth, the part numbers shown on the two hoses closest to camera are 19532 (upper) and 19531 (lower). You can also see that I had to extend the upper hose by around 3" to reach the diverter valve.

If I recall, I lopped off whatever parts of the hoses didn't work for my rerouting plans, then spliced it together with leftover straight segments, using 5/8 stainless hose barbs. All the clamps are constant-tension types from Mcmaster Carr.

 

Remember, two ways to route flow concurrent, they both flow in the top or bottom and out the top or bottom. The othrr is counter current where the two stream enter on opposite ends.

Counter current is more efficient.

 

This idea would be about as efficient as using a 2000HP engine dyno cooling tower as a coffee maker.......I've done it for shits & grins hilarious yes efficient NO

I have also used a generator test cell (huge dead short) as a toaster for another chapter in the shits & grins category...yes it worked BUT it took a 200kw diesel powered gen set & 20 gallons if diesel to warm the bread not toast it.

 

https://www.westmarine.com/buy/isotherm--4-2-gallon-slim-square-water-heater-115v--7771991
This is an engine heater to shower water heat exchanger, with a 4.2-gallon capacity (fine for a quick shower). It also has a 120V heater for "shore power". At campgrounds, it's nice to have hot water to wash dishes, but I use the community showers when at campgrounds. Dispersed BLM lands. It was nice to be able to shower off. Typically no one around for miles, rubber mat, strip, and shower off.

For my T250 Ford Van (9500 pounds gross), the Isotemp was the way to go. Van was a huge box (high roof, extended long). But, 9500 gross weight, so 100 pounds for a shower wasn't a big deal. Irony despite the huge size, 3.5 twin-turbo, it got the same gas mileage.

Plenty of room and weight capacity. With the Taco, I'm back to "warm water bags". I've learned to shower, err rinse a little, with two water bottles from my bicycle. Every four days, I love a real shower, but camping two 16 oz squirt bottles work.

There was also a microwave oven in there, too. Home on wheels, just don't take it too far off road.

 

Oh good, those are the ones I plugged in to (kind of a giveaway when you unplug a hose and coolant comes out)

What do you mean by this? Is it more efficient to run through the coolant through in the opposite direction of the water..?

Sure, unless you've been driving the truck all day and the engine is hot... Something like 2-3 oz of gas to idle the engine long enough for a quick shower seems.. Well, not terribly inefficient anyway!

 

Having trouble uploading pics to this silly site... I'll try some more later maybe.

Camp, after a few days:

An arch! (outside of Arches)

 

Yes, opposite directions

 

Cool, I will need to check that out.

Anyone know which way coolant flows to the heater core?

 

Much easier to see which pipe is which on a four.

This is from my 2021 FSM, but look back by the firewall for the pipe between the cylinder heads, that is hot water to the heater core.