Heater Instal ?'s

I'm installing a heater and doing some electrical upgrades this weekend and have some questions, it is going into a 93 Excel O/B (V Drive).

Should I run the heater hose along with the steering, throttle and wiring in the floor, or should it go under the gunnels? I'm concerned I might be putting too many things in the floor, and will have issues when I need to pull one of them out in the future.

Would it be OK to put some air line quick connects in the heater hose so that I could blow it out with an air tank real quick? We use the boat year round, at least every other week. In the past I have used the ball valves that SKIDIM sells, and kept a block heater on the oil pan that runs on a thermostat. This boat stays on a lift and it is very rare to see the water get below 50 and the air temp to remain below freezing for 24 hrs.   I'm thinking about using one of the bilge heaters and leaving the the water in the block to cut down on the rust scale. I'm thinking the quick couplings might be nice to hook to an air tank for blowing out the heater rather than trusting gravity to drain the hoses.

I'm going to run an extra positive and ground to the dash, it looks like the main ground from the motor goes to the Tach 1st and the positive goes to the ignition breaker. Where to you hook them up in the back?

Last, is it OK to drill into the floor to secure the heater core? I think I have enough space to mount it in the bow under the playpen, but the only way to secure it would be with L brackets screwed to the floor.

Either way you do the core connections I would not use compressed air to purge the lines unless it's very low pressure, have always used lung pressure to clear mine without issue.

TX Foilhead wrote: Alright it is here, thanks for answering my questions, now I have a more. There is nothing like having new toys in your hand a realizing your plan doesn't work. I never realized that the hot tubes come in a foot long plastic tube so now my idea of where 2 of the 3 vents would be mounted is either out the window, or will require some fabrication. The regular vent will mount under the dash to blow on the drivers feet. I was going to have one hot tube on each side of the observers seat, but I wasn't figuring they would be a foot long. Where did the factory mount the heater outlets on these boats? I'm trying to talk myself out of drilling large holes behind the windshield, so if anybody has any other ideas that could be patched up easily at I later date I would love to hear them.

Since you are only going to need the heater for four months a year I would not drill any holes. Just mount the heater in a place that you can get the heater hoses to both seats and take them off when not in use.

Tim