Club 80-90 Forums

Hi everyone,
I'm looking for a little advice please or just your experiences. I bought a Westfalia joker thinking I could renovate the Eberspacher BL1, but being a petrol burner and 33 years old I've been advised this is not the best idea.
There seems to be two obvious alternatives: the Webasto airtop is a petrol burner thats almost identical in dimensions and could use fuel straight from the main tank. This could be used with an iPhone app and I could see how much fuel there is. The other option is a Propex system that could run straight off the LPG tank fitted to the van when new. It would be cheaper fuel and could run off the mains when plugged in at the site, but I don't know how much fuel they use, nor how common LPG filling stations are in remote/scenic parts of the country which is where I guess we'll be heading with the van.
I would be really grateful if anyone had any advice as to which system I should go with.
Many thanks,

Who gave you that advice?
Some spares are available for the B1L.
I wouldn't write off what may be a perfectly good heater without checking it over first.
Petrol air heaters aren't that easy to come by 2nd hand so you are looking at over £700 minimum for a Webasto Airtop 2000ST new.
I have around 15 Webasto 2nd hand diesel heaters for sale at present but petrol ones are like hens teeth and are snapped up quickly when I get one. (none on the horizon at present)
I wouldn't worry about the amount of fuel consumed by them - 0.24l/hr at full chat, 0.12l/hr on lowest.

Thanks for the advice...all very interesting.
The advice ref the BL1 on the vehicle came from an Eberspacher engineer.
I understand what you're saying ref fixing it up, but so I can sleep at night I would rather invest in a new one, although it sounds like there might be people out there who would be happt to restore it.

Thanks again for your help.

Don't forget that the heaters in campers generally have had very light duty compared to ones that have been fitted in lorries and the like which could have been on 8 hours a night for 6 months of the year.

Well I've done it......Webasto airtop ST with iPhone app it is......let's see how well it works!

I bought a hitop westfalia in December which needed lots of work, one being an eberspacher d2l which didn't work.
I had the unit off, replaced the two temp switches and checked the internals which where perfectly clean apart from black sides from the fumes of course.
It still didn't run, tried now and again which I found to be the fuel pump only pumping intermittently.
I traced through the wiring and the circuit boards in the control unit and the room thermostat and fount the stat controls and pulses the fuel pump.
I traced through the components and replaced a transistor and power transistor which we're leaking to earth, prob as there always switching the pump and as the bus is 25 years old it's done well.
Anyway, two transistors and a couple of thermal switches all bought from cpc farnell (there's no min order and free postage and a cost of less than a tenner and the d2l is kicking out loads of heat
An absolutely fantastic heater, cheap repair and keeps the bus nice and standard
Yeah I'm tight but I love fixing things.

I don't have a Phone app, but I do have a key fob operated remote control I fitted to our Propex, so I can switch it on from inside the house

Doppio wrote:Well I've done it......Webasto airtop ST with iPhone app it is......let's see how well it works!

What are your plans for the old Eber now ? (I don't need it, just curious).

Would love to have the technical know how to be able to reinstate the original burner, but i'm just not there yet and think its not worth tempting fate with a pterol burner and a family of four.
No idea what i'll do with the original burner; I guess I'll sell it if someone wanted it or it goes in the bin.

Do you know how safe these heaters are - as soon as someone mentions petrol people seem to panic for some reason! I am surprised that you dare fill up the fuel tank with petrol.
Same with running a gas fridge.

There's always elements of concern with any type of heater, diesel heaters too !
One point most people forget is getting rid of the exhaust fumes.

Jakemate wrote: One point most people forget is getting rid of the exhaust fumes.

To be fair to "us" on here, I very much doubt if anyone is daft enough to forget about the correct plumbing for heater exhaust fumes

Jakemate wrote:There's always elements of concern with any type of heater, diesel heaters too !
One point most people forget is getting rid of the exhaust fumes.

You do the same as for the engine - discharge into the atmosphere! You don't pipe the exhaust into the vehicle/vessel/awning, you would have to be very short on brain cells to do that. (Mind you some people put barbecues in tents - only once though)

There are a few, mine had the exhaust exiting in the middle of the underside of the van when I got it.

I've now ran a new piece of exhaust exiting the side.

ghost123uk wrote:I don't have a Phone app, but I do have a key fob operated remote control I fitted to our Propex, so I can switch it on from inside the house

that's cool!

Smosh wrote:

ghost123uk wrote:I don't have a Phone app, but I do have a key fob operated remote control I fitted to our Propex, so I can switch it on from inside the house

that's cool!

No, = WARM