Trabant Tech Forum

With mine, I would get good heat as low as -5C. I never drove it any weather colder than that.

Well, it was -20'c when I tried starting my Trabant yesterday. At first I thought it was not going to start as the starter motor was very slow. But, bit by bit, the cranking speed increased and by the 5th go the engine was starting to catch. Not long after the engine fired up and settled down to a steady idle. I pushed the choke in fully and left it like that for ten minutes before driving off.

After a couple of minutes I was out of town and on the main road doing 70km/h and was surprised to feel warm air coming out of the demister vents. There was enough heat to keep the windscreen and half of the door windows free of ice and condensation when travelling above 60km/h. Amazing, somewhat better than my Dyane's heating system. As for my VW van well that is an ice box at -10'c barely able to keep the windscreen ice free. I think that with a normal winter coat on I would be comfortable on a long journey at -20'c in my Trabant.

It is a bit colder today so I am tempted to repeat the experiment.

OK -20'c is probably the safe limit for me and my Trabant. It was somewhere between -23 and -25 today and, while the windows stayed frost free as per yesterday, there was not enough heat to make it comfortable.

The car was not fully warmed up so maybe -25 would be OK on a longer run with four people in the car - the engine would be working harder, less internal volume to heat up and the occupants would be adding some body heat too.

I found if it's a clear day there is enough radiant heat to keep the interior comfortable at temperatures around freezing even without a coat. But at 40F, I'm not as comfortable.

I've only had my Trabant out of the garage one time since November.

Still it would be nice to rig up some sort of propane heater instead of that Skiroko system that runs on gasoline!

There is no sun in the bottom of the valley at this time of year We get the sun back in our living room around the 23rd of January. While it can be gloriously sunny in Norway in the winter, the sun is not a source of heat that I would wish to rely on to keep my car windows clear of ice. o_O

If I go for an auxiliary heater then I would choose a 12V Webasto and run it off a 12V battery in the boot. The battery would be charged up by a mains charger fitted in the car. A fully charged 100Ah battery would give around 30 hours running time so ample for most journeys. I am still not sure if you can run a petrol Webasto on 2-stroke so it might need a second fuel tank. I would be inclined to mount it next to the main fuel tank under the bonnet to make filling easier. That would still be simpler than having a second fuel system such as propane.

Good information on cold weather operation.
Roughly similar to my own experience in Chicago, bearing in mind that my car has no carpeting or insulation, and really could stand new door seals.

Do they use road salt in Norway*? It's brutally effective in destroying Trabants, or even regular cars.

The Trabant petrol (gasoline) heaters did use a separate fuel tank.
Interestingly, the heater itself was mounted next to the main petrol tank, which causes some concern about safety amongst those that just aren't cold enough to appreciate it.

While a propane heater might seem safer, there are at least two reasons not:
1- leaking propane is much easier to ignite than leaking gasoline, and is under higher pressure
2- many propane heaters vent their exhaust into the heated space, which could cause suffocation or CO poisoning if the space is tightly sealed.

Strangely, my first car, a SAAB 96 2-cycle from frosty Sweden seemed like it had worse heat than a Trabant, despite having dual heater cores (matrix).




*Argh! Norway, Land of Lutefisk in the winter!
Just thinking about it makes me want to jump in a frozen lake to warm up.
My viking ancestors left Sweden for Chicago with a far more hospitable climate and much less starvation, though the summers do get a little hot.

I had to Google this Webasto heater you speak of. I've never heard of it. 3.9KW or roughly 13,000 BTUs.

http://sales.butlertechnik.com/webasto/webasto-installation-complete-heater-install-kit/webasto-air-top-evo-40-diesel-12v-heater-kit-4111387a

Here is a knockoff version from Russia:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Air-Heater-diesel-PLANAR-4-kW-12V-similar-to-Eberspaecher-Webasto-/131683088741

Supposed to get down to 10F/-12C Monday night. I doubt I'll be driving my Trabant that day.

[USER=757]@Keri[/USER]
Mine has two layers of carpet and rubber mats on the floors. The door seals seem OK. Thanks for the info about the original extra heater as fitted to Trabants.
The authorities do not normally salt the roads when it is -20'c but they did last weekend. I think they must have just gone by the weather forecast which was suggesting temperatures round -10 to -12'c

IIRC the old Saab you owned had an engine based on the DKW/Wartburg 3 cylinder engine. I can't remember if Saab paid a licence fee or nor and I don't know how similar the Saab engine was to the DKW one.

[USER=777]@turbofiat124[/USER] I have fitted two 2kW Air Top Webasto heaters one in the Dyane and the second in the Syncro, and am in the process of fitting a 3.9kW one in my VW van. The 2kW heaters should easily be enough to keep a Trabant warm in the winter as it keeps my Dyane warm. The Dyane has a canvas roof and single skin bodywork whereas the Trabant is double skinned and lined on the inside.

Well I think I answered my own question to this post:

http://www.trabantforums.com/threads/cold-weather-modification.2604/

Yesterday morning, I noticed that the air velocity had dropped off. I just assumed I had been spoiled this winter from driving my Subaru.

The other night I drove my Trabant to work. In the morning it was below freezing. It took some time for the windshield to defog from the outside after scraping frost. In the meantime, the engine started to load up with unburned fuel and oil with the "fuel enrichment" valve open just enough to keep the engine idling.

So after awhile the engine acts like it wants to stall so to clear the engine out, I opened the throttle which created a large plumb of smoke that filled the entire parking lot. As usual my co-workers were running toward the vehicles, jumping in and taking off to get away from the noxious fumes. That's always fun.

And for the first time I actually had the inside of the windshield frost off from my breath when I got in it to start it! That's always been the butt of VW jokes that you have to scrape the inside and outside of the windshield. I thought people were full of crap until I actually had it happen to me.

Anyway, so yesterday morning it was slightly above freezing. I noticed that the temperature from the floor vent felt sufficient but there was very little airflow.

So after work I decided to check my fuel tank level with the dipstick and just so happened to notice that the corrugated hose that runs from the exhaust manifold shield to the silencer (not to be confused with what we Americans call an exhaust muffler) had popped off at the silencer. So what air was being blown across the exhaust manifold was simply being blown into the engine compartment. And I suppose any hot air blown across the heads and exhaust pipe heat exchanger was being blown out the hole in the silencer.

I think I accidently swapped corrugated hoses at some point. So all that was required was to stretch the hose out a bit to make it longer. Simply fix

This morning it was a little bit warmer (40F) and cracked the window a bit at some point to let some of the heat escape.

So yes both of those hoses are important.

I wish I could find a heat resistant blower motor I could install somewhere in the system to pull hot air off the silencer and into the cabin. I tried one of those cylinder shaped brake cooler fans but basically all it did was make allot of noise.



When I mean silencer I mean that big black sausage looking device that has a baffle inside. I suppose to muffle any air noise from the engine fan. I sure hope that thing is not lined with asbestos!

I'm not sure if I need one of those Wabasto heaters. Just more air flow!

One thought might be to build a leak tight heat exchanger and fill it with 50/50 antifreeze and use a pump like this to circulate it through a heater core.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item-img/TS5-15PV-CU-BSP-6-24-V-Volt-Water-Pump-DC-Solar-Pump/1959112171.html?spm=2114.10010108.100005.10.8yoTul

Yes starvation or rather the constant threat of it was one of the prime reasons for significant depopulation in many parts of Norway from the 1850's onward.

Deforestation was a contributing factor as can be seen in these "before and after" pictures show. Nowadays people complain that there are too many trees...personally I think that there are too many huts...

This has been done with VW buses. Take a pair of stainless steel "J" pipes, weld water tight jackets round them with an inlet and an outlet. Then drop the engine and replace the heat exchangers with the new exhaust gas to water heat exchangers. Then re-install the engine and fit all the pipes, heater core, water pump, fill and bleed the system make all the necessary electrical connections etc etc...

It is much easier and probably cheaper (unless you have a mate who will do the welding for free) to install a Webasto style heater.

I like your signature about bigger hammers.

It reminds me of one of our instructors... He used to say: "If it doesn't fit, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway!"