Thread: Hot shower

I have a heat exchange unit which I stole from another car i own.
It worked very well in the other car (Suzuki Jimny) and I assume it would work the same in the defender (td5)

but I keep reading people say they don't work very well in the td5's.
all the instances I have found are only from what they have heard.

so has anyone tried a heat exchange unit on a td5 for themselves?
and how well did it work?

I know u bucket of hot water on a stick is cheap....
but this car will be my house...

Originally Posted by willie

Dave, here is the recommended placement for the piranha power shower (which is reminiscent of the glind). What do you think of this for optimal placement? Certainly looks like and easy install (hmm, wonder if the acoustic cover would still fit).

My prefered method of setting it up is to locate it under the air filter over the bell housing (then you can still use the circled area to cook saussage rolls, garlic breads and traverller pies on) and then feed it from the end of the pipe that lives where youve circled to the heater by fitting a new hose that goes to the exchanger (and please dont move that pipe like that it stresses the moulding on the hose with the bleeder on it and can cause the smaller lines to kink and fracture) and then come out of the exchanger back to the heater matrix. Plug the ends of the cooling system hose you remove and then ziptie it to the air filter box mounts or the shower unit.

The reason being that IF you happen to damage the unit you can still use all the original hoses and you can still easily get into the secret hidden heater hose.

Originally Posted by Benz

sorry don't follow?

Yep, what JimB said

Idling an engine just to heat up water is about the least effecient thing you could do (just justifiable if you're also doing it to charge batteries) you might as well go get a diesel fired heater put 200ml of diesel in that and use it to heat 5-10l of water hell give me 2 weeks and I should just about have the plans for converting a td5 EGR cooler into a water heater done. Its also bad for the engine as it leads to glazing of the bores.

when using those things, If your going to have a shower at the end of the days driving shortly after you pull up (and I mean as in you pull up, your wife heads into the tent, grabs the shower gear while you hook up the hoses and start the pump dont forget to throw a towel over the grill to retard airflow through the radiator) then they're a great idea but to start it up just to get a hot shower is (yes Im repeating) bad for the engines longevity and in some peoples eyes are worse than generators (Ive seen people complain about a .8kw inverter silenced 4 stroke imagine if you pulled up with them and then cranked a 2.2+l diesel with a homping great fan to high idle EVERY night for 15 minutes just when they were settling down and its a lot longer when its really cold)