Espar Diesel Heaters and their Associated Problems

[Ralph Johnstone]

Several days ago, one of the SBO members here sent me a PM which revealed reams of information on Espar burners and stats which I had been unable to locate by picking and poking through the net for weeks.

One staggering item found was that each stat does, in fact, have a means of identification :

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All right now, settle down, settle down. Don't get excited because it doesn't do you a damn bit of good. As far as I can find, Epson has never published a list relating PCB numbers to stat Part Numbers so you're no further ahead.

IMHO, the member who located this and a plethora of other material deserves the credit for this real life find and I will leave it to him to inform you of how he did it. I had spent days searching the web and hadn't even scratched the surface before getting his input.

Not all of the information has been useful (eg. as above) but it does show what a useless crowd of idiots Espar employs in their technical information department. In a recent reply to an e-mail I had sent to Espar looking for stat information for my burner unit, I was given what I consider, IMO, to be a wrong reply by someone who knew less about Espar stats than I did just based on the Espar literature I had collected. And that's scary.

In a recent poll here on SBO which was looking for looking for opinions on the use of AI on this site, I took the position of being opposed. After seeing this real life application of what is involved and seeing the info delivered, I've got to reconsider.

But back to real life on the water and all the problems that are sent to try us. Supposedly, I can get one crew member to be a safety watch while I go down into the Black Hole of Calcutta. I want to see if I can clear out a bunch of useless hoses (as far as I can see) and set up a plan to disconnect everything from the heater and bring it back up into the light of day. A day when it isn't raining cats and dogs. And hope the safety doesn't wander off for a closer look at some interesting boat.

My first inspection will be the Ω of the glow plug and continue from there, I hope Thanks @Windpilot and @marcham.

 

[Steve L22188]

I have been following this thread. I have no idea why because I not only have no diesel heater, I no longer have a sailboat.
But I now fear that the good Mr. Johnstone may have, indeed, fallen into the Black Hole of Calcutta and can't get out!
Is there an update? How long have you been in that Hole?

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

@Steve L22188 , you're far too kind to be wondering what happened to me after my last venture down through the nine rings of hell into Dante's inferno. I went in forewarned and forearmed. I came out with a little more but nothing too exciting to relate at this point. Meh, I might as well relate it anyway.

My first objective was to clear out whatever could be cleared away and get closer to the heater unit ............. exhaust hose, bilge pump hose, water lines, propane, electrical etc, etc. I'm still looking for the guy who owns the boat next to me as I am almost positive some of the lines down in my hold belong to his boat. Power boater, ya know ?

First thing of any use was a good shot of the label on the burner body :

A little digging for a translation and this came out making some sense. It tells me I am the owner (for better or worse) of a D3L C (C for compact) heater with a 25 1980 model number. Getting closer.

For the answer to that age old question, "Thermostat or Heater ? Thermostat Heater ?" I turned to AI with a photo of the stat and they were able to identify that :

The red wire (#5) was connected directly to the battery (+) post and was the line supply to the OFF/ON switch and the orange wire (#6) was on the load side of the switch and fed the start signal to the burner. This I was also able to confirm with Espar literature. So ................. if we connect the #5 wire to the #6 wire, we eliminate the stat from the circuit and the burner fan should start up. It didn't start (GRRRRRR) so we can eliminate the stat as the cause of the problem and move on.

AI also issued such reminders as check for (+) voltage in the orange wire back at the heater and check for a good ground as well while I was back there. If everything looks good for wiring to the heater, bad news because the heater has to come out. It's still too jammed to do any detailed work while the heater is in place.

As it stands (or sits) right now, when I am jammed into the closest position I can get to the burner, my feet are squeezed together and my soles are pressed up against the diesel tank. I am lying (not laying) straight as a ruler and the burner is in line with my crotch.

If anyone knows how to amputate the lower portion of my legs, I may just be able to get low enough to see what I'm doing. However, there is no way I would ever amputate my lower legs unless you ALSO know how to re-attach them. That would be plain foolish otherwise. Maybe AI ?

I am waiting for decent weather this weekend, I hope :

................ as I have given up trying to work outside when it's raining and bloody cold. The boat is covered except for the far aft end where the lazarette is not, and manages to funnel cold rainwater along the inside bottom of the hull where my coveralls manage to soak up every last bloody drop of it.

My aim will be to try to label all of the electrical wiring at the heater so I can re-wire it correctly if I can ever remove it in the first place.

More to come if anyone is still awake.

 

[jssailem]

Helpful and funny, if not developing empathy in my soul for the Trials of Job (if he were a boat owner), which you appear to be experiencing.

I await the next episode of this serial story.

May your patience with this challenge exceed your desire to burn it down and start anew, only with more space designed into the boat.

 

[Steve L22188]

Thanks for the update. While I miss sailing my boat...I don't miss crawling into the back of the lazerette and contorting myself into Houdini-like shapes to tend to plumbing issues. Good luck with warmer weather and the return to the Black Hole of Calcutta. Keep us updated...

 

[marcham]

Good luck. I can definitely empathize with the “carefully selected” equipment placement by the previous owner.

My marine toilet VacuFlush vacuum pump was, for some reason, installed in a location where the only way to reach it is by bending over a vertical divider that forms a bench on the sugar scoop. My belly rests on the vertical divider, my head ends up about two feet below it, and my arms are stretched just to the limit of their reach. Feet dangle in the air or on the opposite side bench. Super comfy.

Fortunately, I only have to service it once or twice a year — usually when someone forgets to chew their corn, flushes a giant wad of paper, or it’s simply “one of those days.” And of course, it always seems to happen around 10 p.m.

The last time I had to service the joker valves, I was alone on the boat. As I inched deeper into the compartment, my belt slipped over the edge of the divider and suddenly all my weight was on my head and neck while I was trying to take things apart.

That’s when I realized I had a problem.

I couldn’t get into a position where I could push my midsection back out of the compartment. It was about 8 p.m., I was the last boat on the finger, and my phone was in the cabin.

So there I was for about 30 minutes, upside down, with my head roughly ten inches away from what you can imagine had been dripping out of the vacuum pump I was servicing.

After some time of yelling for help and trying to wiggle my way out (which only made me slide deeper), a dock mate happened to walk by and noticed my feet dangling in the air. He came over to ask what this particular boat yoga position was called. With some effort, he managed to grab my belt and pull me back over the divider.

Needless to say, I don’t do that job alone anymore. When I eventually get the time, that pump is definitely getting relocated.

Boat fun is a special kind of fun.

Have you figured out the offending component of the heater?

 

[shemandr]

It sounds stupid but you need to take your cell phone into yoga sessions AND have a spotter to check on you. Really, getting stuck in a locker is a terrible situation.
I'm not aware of anyone who perished from being stuck but I know of one who suffered for hours. Awful hours.

 

[Hayden Watson]

If you end up removing the heater from the boat, remember that at its heart, you Espar is a truck heater that has been repurposed to heat a boat. I have found that there are way more service techs for the land based operation than the marine.

One other thing to note is that When I contacted a truck technician to ask about getting service for my boat's heater down the road, I was told that due to licensing rules, he would get in no end of trouble from the from complaints by the local marine service center so he could not work on a boat system. I asked him "If I bring my "quote truck heater unquote" to you for bench testing would that be OK". He said sure, he just could not set foot on a boat.

I actually bought my heater from a truck heating specialist at far less than I could have gotten it from the local marine heating guy. The heater, thermostat and metal encloser cost me $1,100.

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

Have you figured out the offending component of the heater?

OMG, if ONLY it was that simple with the burner. I'm still waaaaaay back at trying to get low enough and close enough to the burner unit to identify and tag all of the electric wiring hanging off of it. May as well photo it as well while I'm down there.

my belt slipped over the edge of the divider and suddenly all my weight was on my head and neck

Talking about getting stuck in the lazarette, when I first went down the hole this time to see what was what, I didn't bother with a safety watch. C'mon, what could go wrong ? That's easy. I dropped my foamy which I would lie on as microscopic relief from the discomfort of being down there. What could be easier than leaning over the edge of the lazarette and grabbing the foamy ? Easy peasy.

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Nothing really. All was gong swimmingly until I reached in about 1/2" too far and teetered over the edge of the lazarette. A vision of "scrunch" if ever there was one. My face was plastered against the bottom of the hull. My arms under my head. My phone was in the cabin. My body plugged the opening and it was highly unlikely anyone could hear me. Anyone who could hear me would likely run like hell in the opposite direction for fear of whomever or whatever posessed such a violent language. I hung like that, upside dowm, for about 15 minutes before figuring out that the only way to escape would be to do a handstand push up until I was high enough to either fall to port side or fall backwards into the water. I fell to port side and lived to tell about it.

I now have a 20' length of line with a knot every foot, tied to the pushpit and hanging in the lazarette before I go in. And my head NEVER EVER goes in before my feet.

And this is the easy part of the whole exercise of repairing this god forsaken contraption. Who needs a !@#$%^&* heater anyways ?

 

[jssailem]

I believe it was @capta, several years ago, that posted a worker exploring the inner workings of a lazarette while fixing his boats motor. At the time I was a bit amazed and wondered how he could get someone to be working with only there knees to ankle's showing.

I often feel that my boat yoga days are numbered.

 

[dLj]

I actually bought my heater from a truck heating specialist at far less than I could have gotten it from the local marine heating guy. The heater, thermostat and metal encloser cost me $1,100.

I highly recommend Rod's take on this:

Diesel Heaters On Boats - Marine How To

Diesel Heaters On Boats - Extend Your Season The Basis for this video/article began backing 2012 after we had quoted our third customer in a month for diesel heater install. We were only marking up component costs by 3%, over our wholesale costs, yet not one customer bit. The response

marinehowto.com

dj

 

[Stu Jackson]

I used to think that getting a bigger boat would be the answer to these "getting stuck" stories. While I am very, very happy about the access to everything on my boat, not everyone with the same range of thirty-somethings are. I remember when those split transoms first came out. One commenter said "They've taken a great storage space and cut it in half, made it impossible to get into or out of to service anything that's in there, haven't moved anything requiring service out of there, all to do what? Make it easier for fat people to get in and out of the water?" If only they'd taken all of the "needs to be serviced" stuff out of those split lazarrettes and left only thru hulls there, we'd all be much, much safer.

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

I actually bought my heater from a truck heating specialist at far less than I could have gotten it from the local marine heating guy. The heater, thermostat and metal encloser cost me $1,100.

Why couldn't you have told me this back in 1998 when I paid amost $3,100 ?

Purely a marine vs. roadworthy scam but I believe your truck technician's claim is the same almost evertwhere.

 

[jssailem]

Seeing that you are still in a bit of shock and perhaps feeling the bends from your deep lazarette dive, I checked out the heater for you.
It has given you 28 years (nearly 3 decades) of faithful service. It cost you $2600 1998 dollars. That would be nearly $4800 CDN in 2026 dollars.

But there is some good news.

Espar has built a new and improved model. They replaced your D3LCC (referred to as the D3LC Compact) in the early 2000’s with the Airtronic line. Their D4L produces more BTU’s (14650 to warm your toes more quickly on those cold Howe Inlet mornings) and cost only $2894 CDN. That is nearly a $2000 savings over what you paid in 1998.

Then there are all the improvements to the heater:
With its robust components and the latest control system, the Airtronic now features both functional expansions and a longer service life. A new brushless motor has extended the service life to 5,000 hours. This new motor, a modern control system and the use of the latest metering pump technology also improve the acoustics. Furthermore, the new Airtronic uses the pioneering Eberspächer CAN bus technology.

Maybe it is time to put the D3LCC to rest.

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

Maybe it is time to put the D3LCC to rest.

NEVER ! ! ! ..................... never I say.

The coming weekend holds the bright sunny promise of sunshine and warmer temperatures :

Yes yes, I know, last weekend held the same promise and although it was sunny, it didn't get above 4°C (39°F) so that's no fun. This will be better because it definitely can't get any worse.

"Live in Hope and Die in Despair"
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Words to live by when dealing with Espar diesel heaters.