For those of you that are not aware of the damage that can take place on your V3 Vortec blower during cold weather start ups I can personally tell you personally that anything below 10c is bad and will cost you about $800.00 to ship out and repair and when it is all done and said you will lose about a month of drive time because people are not just sitting there waiting to repair your unit, there is usually a back log. Ok now on to the good part. I have three options for you - purchase a $8.00 light puck from Menards or Lowes, whatever you have near you. They are 12 volt and come with a 20watt bulb which is an overkill and will drain you battery in about 15 hours of continuous operation. Replace it with a 10 watt and secure it against the side of the blower unit using whatever creative means you have and connect it to the battery red to positive and black to ground and in 20 minutes I went from 18 degrees internally to 47 degrees. I validated this by removing the oil dipstick and placing a digital meat thermometer inside the unit. Obvious options are a switch in the cab, a small fire proof blanket along the sides and top. Another option is go on the web and purchase a 12 volt thermo switch that come on at 30c and turns off at 45c. The draw from the 10watt bulb is about .833333 amps which is like leaving your dome light on. I estimate battery life for a good battery to be about 30 hours before you start to run into a problem. The sole purpose of this is not to run the heater constant, only when it is below 15c for about 30 minutes and then you are good to go. Another really good option is to go to Adafruit.com and purchase a protrinket processor and thermo sensor which you can program to turn on and off at whatever temperature you choose. This "kit" will set you back about $30.00 and about 3 hours of soldering and programming - not for the novice for sure.



Hope this help some of you looking for a solution to cold weather starts.

 

So what happened to your SC?