Cold Weather - 120 Plug

[Vinnie]

On my coach, there is a male 120V plug mounted just below the driver's door; like you could plug the end of an extension cord directly to it. This is not the 50 amp plug-in which is located in an entirely different part of my rig.

Planning a trip this Friday and it's supposed to be 8°F that morning! I have heard a couple different views as to what this might be for but I thought I ping the forum to see what's what.

Is it a: fuel tank heater; engine heater; or battery heater?

The original International operator's manual does not mention this plug.

[pwerwagn]

Its a block heater. It mostly heats up the coolant, but will help keep the oil temp up as well. Its pretty useful if its below ~40* or so.

Even down around 0*, you only need to plug it in ~3 hours or so before you start it. Its a 900watt or so heater (on the 6.0 version at least), so running it all night is useless unless you wanna just use up energy.

--Jeff

[Vinnie]

Great! Thanks, Jeff.

[Darbgnik]

Originally Posted by pwerwagn

Its a block heater. It mostly heats up the coolant, but will help keep the oil temp up as well. Its pretty useful if its below ~40* or so.

Even down around 0*, you only need to plug it in ~3 hours or so before you start it. Its a 900watt or so heater (on the 6.0 version at least), so running it all night is useless unless you wanna just use up energy.

--Jeff

What Jeff said, its the engine block heater. Really helps the engine light off like it's summer when plugged in. Its helpful when the temperatures get anywhere close to freezing.

Up in Canada land where I'm from, we leave them plugged in overnight in the winter, as generally, most people aren't awake hours before leaving for work. Won't hurt anything , except use a but more electricity, like Jeff mentioned.

Also, if you ever have glow plug/grid heater problems, this will help with engine starts as well.


Brad