Glind Shower Install - 4.2TDi

[admin]

I just recieved my delivery of the Glind Shower system for my 4.2TDi.

I dont suppose any members have pictures of which pipes I should connect the thing to?

I will post up the install pictures when I start work on it.

Also - If any member is after a Glind Shower system I have secured a deal for $475.00 delivered Australia Wide - Let me know if your interested.

Here are some photos of what I recieved..

Edited June 2, 2012 by admin
Added pictures

[Brett]

One day I will get...

[admin]

No one have a shower system installed in a 4.2 ? I need pics :-)

[Big gu]

There's one in a issue of 4wd action not sure what number I'll have a look and let you know but it's mounted up the back near the ic

[admin]

There's one in a issue of 4wd action not sure what number I'll have a look and let you know but it's mounted up the back near the ic

Sweet.. I have a mounting spot for it (directly in front of the IC) - However I also need to know what heater pipes to intercept.

[Glort]

Would the HE not connect to the heater Lines?

If there is anything about T'ing the lines, make sure the shower HE is plumbed up so all the heater circuit coolant has to run through it. If you T beforehand, a lot of the coolant will bypass the HE and you may not get the water as hot as you want.

Just as an alternative, The Veg guy use Flat Plate Heat exchangers ( FPHE) for warming up veg oil in much the same way this shower has a HE for warming the bathing water.

Given the FPHE's can be had for around $100 and a suitable pump off flea babe for the same or less, A DIY kit could save those on a budget some cash. A guy I know has the inlet and outlet on snap connectors sitting under his bull bar. he just puts on the pickup and line with the showerhead and he's ready to go.

How long a shower can you get out of these?

I know an engine block is a couple of hundred KG but the cooling effect of flowing water is significant. I made a HE a while back as a coil of copper in a 20L tin of water with a 30Kw Burner under it. I could cool the 20L of water in the bucket with the Burner going full tilt instantly and drop it 30o in no time.

Like I said there is a lot more thermal mass in an engine block but still seems you'd drop temp pretty quick as you'd only have 40-50o reserve.

How long do people with these things get out of them?

[admin]

Got the car back with the Glind installed.. Here are a few pics..

[admin]

I filled the 60L container with cold water from the tap and timed how long it would take to bring it upto shower temperature.

I went for a drive first to get the car upto temp and I kept the car at 1400 rpm with the hand throttle. To warm ~55L of water from bloody cold to shower hot took between 15 and 20 min. I then timed how long it would take to empty the container with the shower rose fully on.. 9 min 22 seconds. Thats good for two decent showers or three short and to the point ones :-)

If I tried to shower with water direct from the tap through the system without preheating it first, it was to cold with the shower rose fully on, but if I restricted the flow to about half the water is hot enough.

Im not sure if this is normal or not.

I may still have air bubbles in the heat exchanger which would reduce the exchange effect - I will need to follow the instructions on the Glind site to try any remove any trapped air.

If your after a Glind system, Tim at Glind can help out - Mention your a member of mypatrol4x4 and he can deliver the full Glind system to anywhere in Australia for $475.00.

[admin]

P.S Thanks to RCA at Wyoming for the install. They did a good job, nice and neat and the hose connectors are awsome.

[BigGQWesty]

Very neat install. And that's not a bad little unit.

[Glort]

Nice to see someone did a job with care and like they took a pride in their work.

They seem to have put real effort and forethought into what they did.

Seems I was under the wrong impression with these things. I didn't realise you had to pre heat the water by circulating it. That was why I was wondering about the cooling effect on the engine, I thought the things worked as a one shot deal where you sucked up the cold water and it came out hot.

My mistake. Thinking of the thermal Maths, I still would have thought with the the right heat exchanger and the engine up to temp it would heve been possible to get one decent shower at a respectable flow rate before things cooled down too much given gut feeling for the weight of the block, total thermal mass and the temp rise required. I'll have to do actual calculations next time instead of guessing.

I suppose if you had a fire going you could speed up the pre heating process by boiling a couple of billys to have less running time on the engine.

I'll bet that will make a welcome luxury to longer camping trips especially in winter!

[admin]

Well, I was under the same impression Glort.. However I think it has a bit to do with

• a) Temperature of the water your getting from the river
  
• Temperature of the car's engine.. I believe petrol engines run hotter than the 4.2 TD.
  
• How much water is flowing through the unit.
  

With the big pump supplied, its over 6L per minute going through the exchanger and I think thats a bit much for it given the temperature of the water to start with.

If I slow down the flow to half that, then the temperature of the water is much better - If I had to compare the flow, it would be about the same as a coleman gas heater cube thing.. I think they flow at about 2.5L per minute - Which is quite slow. At that same flow rate you could heat the water enough using the glind to shower in it.. But Im a big bloke and I like LOTS of water, so preheating might work better for me as I prefer lots of flow.

I was a bit dissapointed that it wouldnt heat 6L per min - :-(

Mind you, it is winter and tap water is cold, but then again, so is river water in summer :-P

[Adventurer1]

I've had two heat exchangers, one home made one, and a Twine one.

The home made one was on a 60 Series Cruiser, and was absolutely brilliant. At just off idle, I had to turn the heater control right down low, to be able to stand under the flow for a shower (no pre-heating or recirculating).

The Twine one on my 2.8 Patrol was very disappointing, and the motor had to be run at a very fast idle (1500rpm) to get any real warmth in the water (first pass). I ended up making a bypass setup on the supply hoses to the rose, to make recirculating the water easier. With the disappointing heating by the Twine system, I ended up selling the exchanger, and now use a canvas bag shower.

A word of warning with the HE showers, and that is to be careful of the scolding water which can come out if the pump has been turned off and that small amount of water sitting in the exchanger. Very dangerous for little kids. There are a couple of safeguards for this problem, one is to be able to recirculate the water rather than turn the pump off, or the other is to use a mixing valve to maintain a safe water temp.

Another good idea to make your HE a bit more efficient both at heating the water, and saving water, is to block the outer one or two rings of holes on your shower rose. This slows the water down, so that you don't use so much, and also allows the HE to heat a bit better.

[dronus4x4]

Thank you for not including gratuitous borat man-kini photos admin...

[Brett]

I have been thinking about buying a glind but after reading this i'm not so sure...

mate has a piranha power shower and the water that comes out of his is perfect from the supply with no recirculating...

maybe it was hooked up different but his is on a 4.2 as well...

as I have the 3L I'm not sure which works with the showers best???

this is something that is difficult to find quality information about...

i think some ppl are dumb to expect the engine to pump hot water first thing in the morning as i see these as a good way to refresh after a decent drive while the engine is still hot...

[admin]

From what ive heard, the piranha power shower is the same as the OLD model Glinds.

You need to check with your mate what his flow rate was like - If it was using a 2.5 to 3L per minute pump then that would explain why he gets hot water compared to my 6L + flow rate which isnt hot enough on the first run through. By slowing the rate down thou using the shower nozel, its fine.

[Glort]

Damn, I spent way too much time looking into this!!!

I thought the numbers looked iffy, so I did do the maths and now know they are.

Heres the summary, the rable is later.

Short, short Summary:

I believe the Glind HE is both too small and too inefficent to provide a one pass shower on cold water.

I calculated on 5o water being heated to 40o with the calculated water flow through a coolant circuit and at an utput of 6.5L min for the shower. I would guess actualy it's coser to 5 or less but anyway.

The efficency of the system calculates to the results being reported.

On warmer water 20oC where the temp rise required is much less, then things would obviously be different.

Longer summary and rabble:

From what I can see on the glind site the HE they use is 65,000 BTU. IMHO that's a marginal output for the job required.

For a flow rate of 6.5L min with say a 35o temp rise, the system is going to need to be operating at 100% efficency with next to no heat losses.

Never going to happen. The othe thing is the efficency of the HE they use is not wonderful. It means that the amount of hot water flow needed to get the cold side up is probably going to be a lot greater than most cars would do through the cooling circuit so you will never get full HE output on the cold side.

That said, if the water flow is hooked up right and not diverted off to the turbo or wherever, then the system should be doing a lot better than what your seeing.

Where does your Shower get it's heat from in the coolant circuit?

IF the system has a water diversion "T" fitting, You need to have the T AFTER the shower HE so all the coolant must run through it then give it the option to go through the heater coil or straight back to the engine. If you T before the HE, then the HE itself will cause a restriction to the water flow and the water will want to do everything in can to avoid going through the HE and giving up its heat.

I would check the shower connections and trace the path of the coolant. For best efficency, you need to make sure that the hose comes off the engine, to the shower HE, to the T ( and on a 4.2 without a T the shower will only activate when the heater is turned on) or the heater core. If there is a T before the HE anywhere, move so it is after the water goes through the shower.

If there is no T, make sure the temp control on your heater is set to max. The fan can ( and would be better) be off, but the temp control regulates the water flow and if that's not wide open you'll be pi$$ing into the wind.

If say your water is cold, 5 C and you want to heat it to say 40 c at a flow of 6.5L min ( will be less actual flow if thatls the pumps rating) you need about 15Kw of heat transfer. Obviously the engine is not putting that much power at idle but like I said, if the engine is already up to heat at say 80oC , the thermal mass is way more than enough to get that sort of temp rise.

If you can't get the water up to 40C from 5 in one pass, either the HE is pitifully sized ( seems marginal in actual fact) or the water flow through the engine/ heater core is blocked. You may need more revs to move the water faster or T the coolant back to the engine to decrease the restriction through the heater core and increase the flow rate. This could be achieved by splicing a 3/4 ball valve across the heater inlet and outlet and opening the valve when showering.

Don't mean to piss on anyoes parade but looking at the numbers, a 30 Plate FPHE would cost around $130 delivered and have more than double the heating capacity of the glind HE. Couple that up with a pump, get your showerhead etc and I believe you would have a FAR superiour system that would give you shower temps on par with engine temps single pass straight through. You should also have a fair bit of change in your pocket.

For those that have a glind shower they are not happy with ( Sorry!) You could look at offloading the HE which seems over priced and substitute a 30 plate FPHE. Given the Glind HE is twice the price of a 30 plate, you shouldn't be out of pocket but you will find yourself in hot water... much hotter and happier than before.

A 30 Plate FPHE has about a 40KW heating capacity. The glind is under 20 and has a much worse efficency rating meaning there has to be a lot more water flow on the hot side to get to that capacity than what a FPHE would require. In this case where engine water flow is a strong consideration, The FPHE would be probably worth 4 times what a Glind HE is.

With a 30 Plate FPHE on a 6.5l min flow, that's enough to give an 88oC temp rise so your shower will be whatever the engine temp is providing you can get about an 8L min flow through the hot side. Of course not needing an 88 C temp rise, 4-5 L a min would be enough.

Hope all this helps someone.

[admin]

Hi Glort - Keep in mind, it was the first time Ive played with it since install.. There may still be an air bubble in the exchanger which wont help things.

To answer your question regarding the flow - See attached pic.. This is how RCA connected it.

The red is the hot radiator water IN
The blue is the radiator water OUT
Given that the red comes directly from just above the water pump I would assume its getting the hot water direct? or is it connected arse about?

White shows the direction of flow of the river water, which is opposite to the hot water flow - Which sounds fine.

Im assuming this is setup correctly? (i.e the hot water is entering the unit from the hottest/best place?)

[Glort]

It's a wet coil type exchanger so any trapped air would be bugger all and not enough to have any real influence. If you drove it home from the installers, it's purged.

The connection is correct although even if it were backwards it wouldn't matter. That is more theroetical than practical.

Only thing that could influence your output on the system would be if the heater control wasnt set to full hot which would restrict coolant flow.

I noticed on the glind site they recommended pre heating the water, 20L which they said was good for 2 showers. Wanna be quick showers is all I can say.

If you wanted to do a shower at a 5L/min flow rate with a temp rise as I calculated of 35o, the fact is the glind HE is going to be struggling.

The capacity is there, I think the effeciency of the HE they use is mismatched. If you had a 20l Min flow of coolant, No probs.

As it's likley to be far less, I think that's why the temp rise is insuffient.

If you measured the temp diff between in and out ( don't put the out back to the inlet source) and the ACTUAL flow rate, then you could easily calculate the EFFECTIVE capacity you are getting.

For a 35o heat rise @ 6.5l min you need to be sinking 15KW of energy into the output. The glind is rated at 19. I can't remember the efficency of those type HE's but I do know it's not great that's why in commercial applications everyone uses FP HE's these days and have for some time.

To be up to the job, not only the Glind HE but the whole system would have to be 80% efficent. I don't even need to crunch the numbers to know it's not a bulls roar near that.

[Brett]

Wouldn't a higher pressure with a more restricted flow be much better at conserving water and getting the water hotter???

[Petefire427]

Hi all, I have a twine installed. There are no t-peieces , it runs direct from engine through heat exchanger then through heater core and back to the engine in one loop. The patrol has a constant flow heater system, meaning it always runs flat out(no heater tap) the control knob operates a "blend door" to ad heat to the heater box. My patrol Idle temp is 76deg./c(not vey hot) a car running at 90 to 95c would obviously work better. Having said that if i idle it up a liitle and also turn on the a/c (turning on the a/c will heat the condensor in front of the radiator) I can get the temp upto 82c.

[Glort]

The GU may have a direct system as a lot of the newer cars do but the GQ does not for anyone installing a system on one of those.

How hot does your shower water get and can you get away with one pass on cold water at this time of year?

[admin]

There are no T-pieces in my install - Its just inline with the heater hose (as per pics).. I will try upping the revs to 1800 and putting the air con on to see how much difference it makes to the temp.

[Bakes]

Gday admin, did you get your gland sorted? I just ordered one today and was wondering if there were any tricks to installing/operating

Bakes

[admin]

It works, I think however if the water is cold, running it around in circles in a big bucket to get it up to temp is the way to go. I havnt used it any other way (yet).. however im going camping at the start of June and it will be bloody cold, so I will report how it went when sucking water direct from the river.

 

I think i will take the car for a drive first for at least 30 min to get it up to temp.