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cobs

Member Since: 12 Jun 2008
Location: North Yorkshire
Posts: 336

2007 Defender 110 Puma 2.4 XS CSW Cairns Blue

AlphaTherm Installation

Dgardel mentioned the AlphaTherm unit in one of his posts for heating up the washer fluid. Do a Google seach for details of the unit itself and installation instruction video on Youtube. I bought mine from AlphaTherm themselves in the States - cost about £80 but then had another £18 import duty to pay.

Here are some pics of the unit fitted to a UK spec Defender 07. Fitting is straightforward, you need to a)mount the unit, b) tap in to the washer fluid pipe and c) connect it up to a power supply.

I mounted mine on the passenger side of the engine bay:

Click image to enlarge

I removed the existing bracket which supports the plastic wheel arch liner and mounted the AlphaTherm supplied bracket to it. This is the position of the bracket:

and this is the modified bracket itself - unfortunately there isn't enough room to mount directly to the existing bracket, it needs to be offset to clear the heater intake so I mounted the Alphatherm bracket to a plate and then fixed the plate to the Land Rover bracket:

There are two pipes that come from the washer fluid reservoir - the one with a white connector goes to the rear and the one with the black connector to the front windscreen.

The unit comes with enough spare pipe and connectors to connect it all up.

The unit is permanently wired up to the battery and senses when the voltage is above 13 volts, i.e. when the engine is running. I found the wires needed extending and I used 8AWG marine cable with proper connectors and heatshrink tubing to keep it all neat. The black ground wire was connected to an existing earth connection on the bulkhead...........

....... and the red wire fed through the bulkhead where the main loom goes through:

(top marks to Land Rover for providing a connector with spare holes, nil points for sticking a stupid bracket in front making it impossible to get to!)

The rest of the red wire gets fed back to the battery box and +ive terminal via the supplied 60A fuse [Note: make sure the fuse is included when extending the red wire otherwise you have a potential fire hazard]

So how does it work in practise? Well I was slightly sceptical originally on the basis (as Sticky has mentioned in another post) that the fluid in the pipe between the Alphathem unit and the windscreen washer jet could still potentially be frozen - so I guess it's important to ensure at least the pipes don't freeze by adding the right amount of additive. To test it out I left the Land Rover out last night and it was fairly chilly this morning (at least for Yorkshire!):

Click image to enlarge

I started the engine and let it idle for a minute - the heater wasn't set to defrost and the heated windscreen was off. THe unit draws about 50 amps for a short while whilst it heats the fluid up initially then much less as it keeps it on 'tickover'. On the first spray of about three to four seconds hot water was being sprayed on the screen :

Sorry I can't show pictures of it actually being sprayed only the after effects - afraid I wasn't brave enough to ask the wife to stand there taking pictures of a LandRover windscreen at -8

After the second spray it looked like this:

I then turned the heated windscreen on and gave it another spray:

So overall verdict is more impressed than I expected - it's certainly possible to clear the screen with the washer jets enough to drive, the main reason to turn the heated windscreen on was to clear condensation inside but a combination of the two makes life easier.

Admin note: this post has had its images recovered from a money grabbing photo hosting site and reinstated

20th Dec 2010 1:18pm

cobs

Member Since: 12 Jun 2008
Location: North Yorkshire
Posts: 336

Apologies, finger trouble, first picture should have been:

Admin note: this post has had its images recovered from a money grabbing photo hosting site and reinstated

20th Dec 2010 1:22pm

Lorryman100

Member Since: 01 Oct 2010
Location: Here
Posts: 2686

Excellent write up

Though I have always used 50/50 mix of additive without the nozzles freezing up (even at -20 at the beginning of this year), this would be a cheaper option than using washer additive all the time. Let us know how it performs at removing traffic grime and if you will still add a little additive. Does additive cause any problems with the heating element or internal workings? Also did you fit this to help defrost the windscreen, stop the nozzles freezing when driving or as a viable alternative to screen wash? Sorry for all the questions but have been looking at getting this for my Landy to work along side Entreq's new higher capacity windscreen washer jet (once they release it.)

Cheers Brian.

20th Dec 2010 4:37pm

cobs

Member Since: 12 Jun 2008
Location: North Yorkshire
Posts: 336

Brian,

You still need to use screen additive to stop the washer fluid freezing and the manufacturer recommends it so it won't save you any money. I got mine partly out of cuiosity if I'm honest, though it was prompted by Dgardel's post and by a frustrating motorway jouney where the only way I could defrost the washer nozzle was by pouring my daughter's hot tea over it from her flask (mine contained whisky so no use at all! - though to be fair I didn't try). I'm not a fan of scraping the windows in the morning so I figured if it coudl help that and keep the nozzles clear then it was worth a try.

20th Dec 2010 5:09pm

Lorryman100

Member Since: 01 Oct 2010
Location: Here
Posts: 2686

20th Dec 2010 6:03pm

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