We occasionally have pretty cold weather in Utah, not the coldest, but enough that I would want to at least use a block heater. The Contact Maintenance truck is not used often compared to our daily drivers and may not be near a power outlet so I began gathering parts for the arctic heater kit. I bought a partial kit online years ago but once I found the instructions posted here I realized it was missing tons of parts. I found a great guy locally that got his hands on many arctic CUCV kits, some of which are amazingly complete. A real complete kit would fill the back of your truck easily and has tons of boxes and large fuel lines, insulation etc. His are for the M1009 so they have a lot of the custom insulation and wood that goes with the blazer, but most of the other parts are the same between kits. If anyone has been looking for parts for their arctic kit let me know via PM what you are looking for and I will pass it along to him.
This past week I finally got the ambition to get started. I figured with winter coming I should start with the hardest parts to install. Since I'm working outside I decided on the oil and transmission pans. The kits comes with a totally new pan for each that has a box welded around the bottom of the pans to heat them using the exhaust from the coolant heater.
The transmission pan wasn't too bad and I decided it would be a good time for a new filter and gasket anyway. I'm glad I started it when I did because the bolts on the pan were very loose, I'm surprised it wasn't leaking ATF. The oil pan was much more fun. You have to remove the transmission inspection cover, and transmission cooler lines. I used right stuff for the oil pan gasket. It's the first one I've done on a 6.2 and I'm hoping it went well. The instructions say to install the part within 5 minutes but it took me over 25 to get the pan in place and the bolts on. There is a small stainless flex pipe that goes between the oil pan and transmission pan for the heat. Since I was down there I also installed the new oil cooler lines. They are longer than the stock CUCV lines so that they can be routed up near the top of the fender so that they are not in the way of the heater mounts and exhaust pipe. These three items took me most of a day, but the next morning the truck fired up and I didn't notice any leaks.
The coolant heater ties into the coolant crossover and the heater line going into the radiator. The kit comes with a new coolant crossover / thermostat housing that has a 3rd pipe thread fitting that points straight forward. You reuse the 2 pipe thread to hose barb fittings, the thermostat, and the top radiator hose part of the housing. You'll need new crossover gaskets (2) and one for the thermostat housing. Since this is a M1031 I had to remove the Woodward actuator for the generator control. That involved two bolts that secure it to the engine lifting ring, two bolts that connect to supports going down to the intake. I had to remove one of these supports and the intake manifold bolt so that I could get to the crossover bolts. The passenger side alternator had to be loosened and the top support bracket removed to get to the crossover bolts. You might want to replace the short hose going from the water pump to the crossover while you've got it off. I'll add more pictures of the installed parts once I get some better lighting. The actuator appears to block the hose from the heater to the crossover, so I might have to deviate a little to go around it.
I'll post more pictures as the install progresses. I'm going to focus on the coolant heater first, I'm still not sold on if the compartment heater for the cab and batteries is totally necessary for my use. I had thought about installing it in the tool box of the M1031 to warm that area, not sure if there would be much benefit to it.
This past week I finally got the ambition to get started. I figured with winter coming I should start with the hardest parts to install. Since I'm working outside I decided on the oil and transmission pans. The kits comes with a totally new pan for each that has a box welded around the bottom of the pans to heat them using the exhaust from the coolant heater.
The transmission pan wasn't too bad and I decided it would be a good time for a new filter and gasket anyway. I'm glad I started it when I did because the bolts on the pan were very loose, I'm surprised it wasn't leaking ATF. The oil pan was much more fun. You have to remove the transmission inspection cover, and transmission cooler lines. I used right stuff for the oil pan gasket. It's the first one I've done on a 6.2 and I'm hoping it went well. The instructions say to install the part within 5 minutes but it took me over 25 to get the pan in place and the bolts on. There is a small stainless flex pipe that goes between the oil pan and transmission pan for the heat. Since I was down there I also installed the new oil cooler lines. They are longer than the stock CUCV lines so that they can be routed up near the top of the fender so that they are not in the way of the heater mounts and exhaust pipe. These three items took me most of a day, but the next morning the truck fired up and I didn't notice any leaks.
The coolant heater ties into the coolant crossover and the heater line going into the radiator. The kit comes with a new coolant crossover / thermostat housing that has a 3rd pipe thread fitting that points straight forward. You reuse the 2 pipe thread to hose barb fittings, the thermostat, and the top radiator hose part of the housing. You'll need new crossover gaskets (2) and one for the thermostat housing. Since this is a M1031 I had to remove the Woodward actuator for the generator control. That involved two bolts that secure it to the engine lifting ring, two bolts that connect to supports going down to the intake. I had to remove one of these supports and the intake manifold bolt so that I could get to the crossover bolts. The passenger side alternator had to be loosened and the top support bracket removed to get to the crossover bolts. You might want to replace the short hose going from the water pump to the crossover while you've got it off. I'll add more pictures of the installed parts once I get some better lighting. The actuator appears to block the hose from the heater to the crossover, so I might have to deviate a little to go around it.
I'll post more pictures as the install progresses. I'm going to focus on the coolant heater first, I'm still not sold on if the compartment heater for the cab and batteries is totally necessary for my use. I had thought about installing it in the tool box of the M1031 to warm that area, not sure if there would be much benefit to it.
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