As you were describing the problem and taking it apart it reminded me of flooding an old car with the pull out chokes. Blinking AdBlue, seems to be nothing but bother. Glad you've got it all sorted.
Hi John, i had the same smoke problems last time i was inn Scotland, the van had been going through some big puddles and i found that the combustion air foil inlet pipe had got sodden and collapsed, i have changed it for a stainless steel one and a new air filter and its been working brilliant ever since, it might be worth a look, all the best 😊
The replacement diesel heater I fitted in scotland worked fine using the existing pump, exhaust and air inlet pipe. So in my case it seems it was just down to the fuel additives.
have been running our 3 diesel heaters one 2kw and two 5kw on Kerosene for over 2 years and never had any problems as long as we service them in the summer time. I also add a little 2 stroke oil to lube the pumps which makes them quieter.
Iv had all this with a genuine eberspacher heater it was as clean as yours when taken apart after a clean service we found after 3 months of hard use it was back to starting on 3 rd attempt and smoking abit so we now start it on a full power and switch it off with 10 mins full heat to clear that wet unburnt diesel. It now runs better we find
Good info, I tried that too but it made no difference how high the final burn was before powering off. The heater had worked fine for a year and only started having this issue after using fuel treatment for the DPF issue I had.
Kerosene will always burn cleaner, not had any issues with it and a friend of mine uses Kerosene 100% of the time, his three run 24/7 for nearly 4 years with zero issues.
Hi John had the same problem, used new glow plug and cleaned out heater and gauze. Was ok for a bit. Ended up with new heater, which started smoking after a week. Out come was the silencer was blocked with crap from the white smoke. Removed silencer and been good ever since
When we first repaired ours, we used a non webasto gasket but the burn temp dropped by 40/50 degrees c. Asked the Canadian CDH group and the difference in gasket thickness makes the burn temp difference. The non webasto gasket was 1.05mm, the webasto gasket was 1.2mm, went from 150 degrees to 190-200 degrees with a change of gasket !
Had mine nearly 3 yrs ,only one glow plug fault. Easy fix, top kit for the money. Nice video though, saved as a reminder for when I need to service mine. 👍
John .. I have a Webasto thereto c ( water heater ) on my narrowboat its ran perfect for 11 years on kerosene only had a fan failure in that time. glad you heater is fine again .. im about to install a CDH in my camper .. with separate fuel tank will see how it goes ..
Morning John I've had same on my 2kw not starting just smoking but would start up when engine was running. So voltage was up to 14v Replaced glow plug and all was good So i put it down to worn-out glow plug As with yours in sides was clean
Good autopsy! I use my heater exclusively on kerosene in my mancave, and the only issue I had about 4 months on was a broken spark plug. A nice easy fix, but I don't know if the higher temp of the fuel was the cause. It hasn't happened again yet.
Awesome vid John 🔥 However I think you missed one critical check, the combustion fan clearance…..however I’d not think that the problem however a definite go to check when removing fan unit 🔥🙏👌👍😜😀😍
Glad you got it sorted out and i was also going to say look at your air intake as they can clog / collapse as others mentioned. it looks like it was getting more fuel than air and so not having a clean burn and leaving unburnt fuel behind Cheers Rich&Cooper
@@GadgetJohn yep it is strange and it could just be the additives as you say. I did see another video where they had ice buildup on their air intake and it wasn’t starting and was smoking. They have very small holes and could easily block with snow / ice just something to look at maybe if it happens again. They were in very cold conditions with snow so I thought I would look at some kind of air box / shield to reduce the water splash and dust while driving as I want to head over to Sweden this Autumn and will need a reliable heater for sure!
@@GadgetJohn Glad you got it running and its definatly quieter, must have been the fuel quality then with all those cleaning agents in there. Just shows how sensitive they can be to a fuel change and worth knowing as i'm pulling from my main tank too.
Great video helpful if i need to service mine...i run mine also from the vans fuel tank ..and have my pump and filter under the drivers step cover and dont hear a thing but i left bulk head in.
Chinese heater (Lavaner Pro are great for consistent quality) with an afterburner controller is a great combo as it gives so many options for control and means you can start it remotely.
Great vlog John, really useful. At least you got to service your heater, and perhaps the cleaner additive was the cause of your sootless burn chamber 🤔. Either way, always something to learn from your videos. Cherrs.👋
Thanks John, I’m bookmarking this for future reference. The diesel heater in the Amazon link doesn’t look like yours, is it the correct one? Many thanks x
I had smoke issues with a new heater. Turned out the exhaust was blocked, I'd used too much sealer paste. Strange haw system cleaner cause your issue, maybe a carbon clean would have been a better solution?
I had a load of similar smoke coming out of my shed diesel heater recently after a fuel leak. Turns out my inline filter was cracked and fuel was leaking everywhere. Once I’d fixed it it smoked for a good 15 minutes until it all burnt off. Working A ok now. For you DPF issues is it worth looking at having it coded out in a remap maybe?
Hi John, enjoyed the video,can you tell me which diesel heater you fitted originally?and was the poorly performing one the same make ? many thanks from another John.
The one I’m repairing is the original heater that started smoking, the interim replacement heater was bought years ago. It’s all explained in the video.
What running modes do you have on that diesel heater? Constant power? Thermostat? Thermostat but never shut off? Thermostat + ventilation? Does it have high altitude sensor? I usually run my Autoterm on thermostat but never shut off to keep noise level even and power consumption down. Since it is in a occasionally used caravan I run it on HVO100 for the long terms storage properties and cleaner burn than diesel.
Hi John. I watch your videos and you are good at explaining what you do. I would like to ask you about putting a fire stick or the fire cube into our motorhome which is the best and what do I need to do. Take care and stay safe. Rob
Hi John again, I rememberd you did a vid on the Afeiry power bank and just watched the vid ,a question about it is can you charge them from your van DC when you are driving, or is it just mains and solar, I would greatly appreciate your advice ,Thank you
Were you at high altitude and didn’t use high altitude mode ? We were in Switzerland at 900m and our started smoking, nothing in it when we opened it but had unburnt diesel.
Hi, I have two Units, and with a thin screwdriver and scissors I removed all the layers of the atomizer mesh, leaving only one, it seems to me that they work better now, and its more Easy tò remove It from the hole because now its more thin.
I saw a video a couple of days ago and mentioned it’s best to tune the heater min fan and pump speed and max fan and pump speed. Is this a common thing to do ?
Hi John I've got a 5kw diesel heater in my van it's not a big van but it just gets too hot in there can i put a 2kw heater in there and keep the same fuel pump and same controller so I don't have to change them as well thank you for any information 👍
I started with a 5kw when I built my van & quickly changed to a 2kw heater and it’s much better at getting a comfortable temperature in all weather. You should change the pump & controller, including wiring harness, when you change heaters.
the chinese diesel heater is like a short webasto burn chamber and an eberspacher glowplug burner assembly . what really makes the german ones stand out is the better control software
If you pay the extra for the smart controllers, otherwise you pay over 10 times the price for a rotary heater knob. Definitely not worth the money really.
@@GadgetJohn webasto is seriously overpriced, but mine came with the vehicle so effectively free. I did make a new universal board (because my water heating thermo top failed) that fit webasto and Chinese about 5 years ago and put it out there for free and ready made pcbs for 20 quid to cover my hour of assembly time but I got banned from some Facebook groups that where no doubt taking a cut from pushing "other burner" boards.
I watched a guy who’s replaced the pcb & controller with switches & bulbs and the heater works great. No idea why anyone would block you selling something that enhances how these work 🤷🏼♂️
@@GadgetJohn I was blocked because the fb group owner was (possibly, for legal reasons I have to say possibly) getting a kickback from people ordering the other one, and nothing from me giving it away or charging just assembly time. I have often thought of revisiting the project after the time i put into it originally, we see pics of cavemen finding it so easy to have fire, it took me about 3 weeks to write the code to maintain a stable burn and hot/cold restarts reliably...
additives indeed seem sus, could be the tipping point. Have seen many guys abusing their dieselheater with lots of stuff, measuring many undesirables in the exhaust. Might be carefull even if it does not smell. My 5kW dieseheater came equiped with a 0.22ml pump, running 1.6Hz about 30ppm CO when at lowest operation mode. controller without engineersmenu. saying while not knowing your controller config, and or if equiped with that 1688 menu, thinking 1.6hz would run a 2kW run rich. 16:26
@@paulrandall4484 a little rich burns hotter than a perfect fuel:air ratio, for what i understand. Too rich result in unburned fuel leads to sooth buildup and too much CO. hypothetical you could match the fan RPM with the amount of fuel dosed if one has access to the 1688 menu. But i found that not that easy, even with CO meter. But as others already mentioned, other issues could be a cause for unclean start/burn. e.g. obstructed airintake, faulty glowplug, OP sorted his problems out and is running fine. Regards to all
Then please explain how red diesel, which is just diesel with a red dye added, and kerosene which burns cleaner than diesel can clog up a diesel heater?@@GadgetJohn
![[SOLVED] Diesel Heater Won't Start, Blowing White Smoke](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PaxYxzdTX64/mqdefault.jpg)
I use dipetane in my tank & it never soots up my webasto at2000d,it's been installed over 20 years now & still gives great service.
Good work John 👍
As you were describing the problem and taking it apart it reminded me of flooding an old car with the pull out chokes. Blinking AdBlue, seems to be nothing but bother. Glad you've got it all sorted.
Found this interesting but wouldn’t know where to start, you’re very clever 😊
4:00 A wood screw does the job very nicely. Thx for info ! Greets from Minotauria - Herzele
Hi John, i had the same smoke problems last time i was inn Scotland, the van had been going through some big puddles and i found that the combustion air foil inlet pipe had got sodden and collapsed, i have changed it for a stainless steel one and a new air filter and its been working brilliant ever since, it might be worth a look, all the best 😊
The replacement diesel heater I fitted in scotland worked fine using the existing pump, exhaust and air inlet pipe. So in my case it seems it was just down to the fuel additives.
have been running our 3 diesel heaters one 2kw and two 5kw on Kerosene for over 2 years and never had any problems as long as we service them in the summer time. I also add a little 2 stroke oil to lube the pumps which makes them quieter.
Iv had all this with a genuine eberspacher heater it was as clean as yours when taken apart after a clean service we found after 3 months of hard use it was back to starting on 3 rd attempt and smoking abit so we now start it on a full power and switch it off with 10 mins full heat to clear that wet unburnt diesel. It now runs better we find
Good info, I tried that too but it made no difference how high the final burn was before powering off. The heater had worked fine for a year and only started having this issue after using fuel treatment for the DPF issue I had.
Kerosene will always burn cleaner, not had any issues with it and a friend of mine uses Kerosene 100% of the time, his three run 24/7 for nearly 4 years with zero issues.
Hi John had the same problem, used new glow plug and cleaned out heater and gauze. Was ok for a bit. Ended up with new heater, which started smoking after a week. Out come was the silencer was blocked with crap from the white smoke. Removed silencer and been good ever since
Good info. I tried that in Scotland before I removed the heater and it didn’t make any difference to mine.
I won't be getting that issue as couldn't fit the silencer and I never got around to doing it😂.
When we first repaired ours, we used a non webasto gasket but the burn temp dropped by 40/50 degrees c. Asked the Canadian CDH group and the difference in gasket thickness makes the burn temp difference. The non webasto gasket was 1.05mm, the webasto gasket was 1.2mm, went from 150 degrees to 190-200 degrees with a change of gasket !
Had mine nearly 3 yrs ,only one glow plug fault. Easy fix, top kit for the money. Nice video though, saved as a reminder for when I need to service mine. 👍
John .. I have a Webasto thereto c ( water heater ) on my narrowboat its ran perfect for 11 years on kerosene only had a fan failure in that time. glad you heater is fine again .. im about to install a CDH in my camper .. with separate fuel tank will see how it goes ..
Spot on John. An education in this video which it will be a look back for many of us guys.
Morning John
I've had same on my 2kw not starting just smoking but would start up when engine was running. So voltage was up to 14v
Replaced glow plug and all was good
So i put it down to worn-out glow plug
As with yours in sides was clean
Good autopsy! I use my heater exclusively on kerosene in my mancave, and the only issue I had about 4 months on was a broken spark plug. A nice easy fix, but I don't know if the higher temp of the fuel was the cause. It hasn't happened again yet.
Very informative, detailed video and a useful tutorial for stripping the heater down - thank you!
I've had my Chinese diesel heater in my shed for 3 years 100s if hours on still works great
Great vlog. Don’t think I’d have the confidence or tools to strip mine if ever needed. You are a clever guy! 😊
Great analysis very informative and interesting thank you , nice to know parts are serviceable good luck 👍👍👍🏴🇬🇧🇨🇦🦢
Awesome vid John 🔥
However I think you missed one critical check, the combustion fan clearance…..however I’d not think that the problem however a definite go to check when removing fan unit 🔥🙏👌👍😜😀😍
Glad you got it sorted out and i was also going to say look at your air intake as they can clog / collapse as others mentioned. it looks like it was getting more fuel than air and so not having a clean burn and leaving unburnt fuel behind Cheers Rich&Cooper
That’s the bit that threw me, I swapped the heater out and left the same air, exhaust & fuel system in place and the new heater didn’t smoke.
@@GadgetJohn yep it is strange and it could just be the additives as you say. I did see another video where they had ice buildup on their air intake and it wasn’t starting and was smoking. They have very small holes and could easily block with snow / ice just something to look at maybe if it happens again. They were in very cold conditions with snow so I thought I would look at some kind of air box / shield to reduce the water splash and dust while driving as I want to head over to Sweden this Autumn and will need a reliable heater for sure!
With this heater I’d already tried removing the exhaust & air intake pipes to see if one was causing the problem but it just didn’t want to fire up.
@@GadgetJohn Glad you got it running and its definatly quieter, must have been the fuel quality then with all those cleaning agents in there. Just shows how sensitive they can be to a fuel change and worth knowing as i'm pulling from my main tank too.
Great video helpful if i need to service mine...i run mine also from the vans fuel tank ..and have my pump and filter under the drivers step cover and dont hear a thing but i left bulk head in.
Chinese heater (Lavaner Pro are great for consistent quality) with an afterburner controller is a great combo as it gives so many options for control and means you can start it remotely.
I use a long screw... to get the atomiser out. The grooves 'grab' the inside and you can slide it out.
Good tip, I got the pick set to get into the fire up air hole. So for a few quid it was worth adding the tools to my set.
Hi John that was very interesting thanks for the great vlog
Be safe 👍
I fixed the smoking on startup issue on my heater by enlarging the little hole next to the atomizer to 1\8 inch. No smoke ever after.
Any problems since? or thoughts on final outcome of this video Jon. Thankyou
Great vlog John, really useful. At least you got to service your heater, and perhaps the cleaner additive was the cause of your sootless burn chamber 🤔. Either way, always something to learn from your videos. Cherrs.👋
Thanks 👍
Thanks John, I’m bookmarking this for future reference. The diesel heater in the Amazon link doesn’t look like yours, is it the correct one? Many thanks x
Hi john, good video, john did you try to fit glow plug, the one I got in kit would not fit..thanks, take care and stay safe.
Thanks for a great video, may I ask what camera you were using for a headcam.
Nice work on the heater.
Cheers
Thanks you. I was using a DJI Osmo Action 3 mounted to a chest mount.
I run mine a lot of the time on Kerosene. Its less greasy than Diesel and more Flammable. Doesn’t appear to coke up as much as Diesel
Good job, well worked through 😀👍🏼
I had smoke issues with a new heater. Turned out the exhaust was blocked, I'd used too much sealer paste. Strange haw system cleaner cause your issue, maybe a carbon clean would have been a better solution?
I had a load of similar smoke coming out of my shed diesel heater recently after a fuel leak. Turns out my inline filter was cracked and fuel was leaking everywhere. Once I’d fixed it it smoked for a good 15 minutes until it all burnt off. Working A ok now.
For you DPF issues is it worth looking at having it coded out in a remap maybe?
Good info. My DPF issue was fixed when I cleaned out the adblue injector 👍🏻
Hi John, enjoyed the video,can you tell me which diesel heater you fitted originally?and was the poorly performing one the same make ? many thanks from another John.
The one I’m repairing is the original heater that started smoking, the interim replacement heater was bought years ago. It’s all explained in the video.
Hi again, perhaps l should have said what make or model of heater.
What running modes do you have on that diesel heater? Constant power? Thermostat? Thermostat but never shut off? Thermostat + ventilation?
Does it have high altitude sensor?
I usually run my Autoterm on thermostat but never shut off to keep noise level even and power consumption down.
Since it is in a occasionally used caravan I run it on HVO100 for the long terms storage properties and cleaner burn than diesel.
Usually thermostatic during the day if it’s cold and H1 overnight if it’s really cold outside.
Hi John. I watch your videos and you are good at explaining what you do.
I would like to ask you about putting a fire stick or the fire cube into our motorhome which is the best and what do I need to do.
Take care and stay safe. Rob
I’ve only ever used a fire stick and that plugs into the hdmi port of your tv and then uses WiFi for streaming.
Great video
Hi John another great vid,what do you think of these clayton power banks,I am thinking of getting one for my vw van to charge my 625 wh ebike
I decided not to use them due to the fact you’re paying far more than you would for something like the aferiy which has more power.
Hi John again, I rememberd you did a vid on the Afeiry power bank and just watched the vid ,a question about it is can you charge them from your van DC when you are driving, or is it just mains and solar, I would greatly appreciate your advice ,Thank you
Good vid thanks for the vids you do on channel thanks lee
You might want to more permanently mount the pump @ the proper angle. It seems as though those pumps are calibrated.
U r very clever
Were you at high altitude and didn’t use high altitude mode ? We were in Switzerland at 900m and our started smoking, nothing in it when we opened it but had unburnt diesel.
No, the heater wasn’t working well for over a month before it stopped and that was at many heights, temps and weather conditions.
Ace video John
Hi, I have two Units, and with a thin screwdriver and scissors I removed all the layers of the atomizer mesh, leaving only one, it seems to me that they work better now, and its more Easy tò remove It from the hole because now its more thin.
I saw a video a couple of days ago and mentioned it’s best to tune the heater min fan and pump speed and max fan and pump speed.
Is this a common thing to do ?
I’ve not seen any heater that gives that level of customisation
Hi John I've got a 5kw diesel heater in my van it's not a big van but it just gets too hot in there can i put a 2kw heater in there and keep the same fuel pump and same controller so I don't have to change them as well thank you for any information 👍
I started with a 5kw when I built my van & quickly changed to a 2kw heater and it’s much better at getting a comfortable temperature in all weather. You should change the pump & controller, including wiring harness, when you change heaters.
Thanks John wasn't sure if I could get away without changing all of it but that has made my mind up cheers 👍 👌
why?
Did you fix your dpf problem?
Yes, it was just a very clogged up adblue injector. Once cleaned it’s been fine since.
the chinese diesel heater is like a short webasto burn chamber and an eberspacher glowplug burner assembly . what really makes the german ones stand out is the better control software
If you pay the extra for the smart controllers, otherwise you pay over 10 times the price for a rotary heater knob. Definitely not worth the money really.
@@GadgetJohn webasto is seriously overpriced, but mine came with the vehicle so effectively free. I did make a new universal board (because my water heating thermo top failed) that fit webasto and Chinese about 5 years ago and put it out there for free and ready made pcbs for 20 quid to cover my hour of assembly time but I got banned from some Facebook groups that where no doubt taking a cut from pushing "other burner" boards.
I watched a guy who’s replaced the pcb & controller with switches & bulbs and the heater works great. No idea why anyone would block you selling something that enhances how these work 🤷🏼♂️
@@GadgetJohn I was blocked because the fb group owner was (possibly, for legal reasons I have to say possibly) getting a kickback from people ordering the other one, and nothing from me giving it away or charging just assembly time. I have often thought of revisiting the project after the time i put into it originally, we see pics of cavemen finding it so easy to have fire, it took me about 3 weeks to write the code to maintain a stable burn and hot/cold restarts reliably...
I'm tempted to just buy a new one :) Lolz
I thought the 2kw had a 16ml pump and the 5kw had the 22ml
No, 22ml for 2k to 5kw
@@GadgetJohn that's why then mine is just the 2kw, but I only use it as a backup as I have a Truma 4e as the main heating source
😊
John,could it be running too rich?
It ran for a year perfectly fine and since it’s been repaired it’s running fine. So I think my assumptions in the video are spot on.
additives indeed seem sus, could be the tipping point.
Have seen many guys abusing their dieselheater with lots of stuff,
measuring many undesirables in the exhaust.
Might be carefull even if it does not smell.
My 5kW dieseheater came equiped with a 0.22ml pump,
running 1.6Hz about 30ppm CO when at lowest operation mode.
controller without engineersmenu.
saying while not knowing your controller config, and or if equiped with that 1688 menu,
thinking 1.6hz would run a 2kW run rich. 16:26
Am I correct then in thinking that running rich (ie , to powerful a pump} could result in unburnt fuel and hence CO issues ??@@Lupinlethird
@@paulrandall4484
a little rich burns hotter than a perfect fuel:air ratio, for what i understand. Too rich result in unburned fuel leads to sooth buildup and too much CO.
hypothetical you could match the fan RPM with the amount of fuel dosed if one has access to the 1688 menu.
But i found that not that easy, even with CO meter.
But as others already mentioned, other issues could be a cause for unclean start/burn. e.g. obstructed airintake, faulty glowplug,
OP sorted his problems out and is running fine.
Regards to all
hi john i used diesel injector clearer have done this for four year with the same heater
I spoke about DPF fuel treatments. The other additives seem fine as I’ve used them too.
Mine is 6yrars old and going perfect nothing wrong with Chinese heater's
I think I would run the heater on the bench to confirm it was working before fitting to van.
I did that 👍🏻
Kerosene and red diesel don't clog them up.
Apart from the ones I’ve personally seen do this.
Red diesel? Its exactly the same as white diesel but with a dye added.
Then please explain how red diesel, which is just diesel with a red dye added, and kerosene which burns cleaner than diesel can clog up a diesel heater?@@GadgetJohn
Running rich
👍👍🚐🚐😎