D24t warmup - your experiences?

[Boots]

For those running their D24s in the colder parts of the world, do you find that they take a fair while to produce much heat from the car heater?

Mine produces a bit of warmth after a mile or so but it can be 5 miles or more before you get enough heat to defrost your fingers in front of the vents!

The thing is, a diesel engine doesn't produce much heat unless its being worked (a good thing in terms of efficiency) but as we all know, you shouldn't make the D24 work hard until it's warmed up! Bit of a catch-22.

I believe the thermostat is probably ok as the rad circuit stays cold during warmup and the temp doesn't drop if you leave it idling after warmup...

I think my lump probably has the 'tropical' fan attached as it seems to produce hurricane force winds under all conditions! I wonder if this gale is cooling the lump during warm-up because the viscous clutch is so over-zealous. (It's not seized - you can turn the fan with the motor stopped...) When time and finance allows, I'll be fitting an electric fan and stat to eliminate this potential cause.

During the recent cold snap here in the UK, I've even been thinking of making up a little block with unions to fit into the heater supply pipe and threaded ports for say 4 glow plugs to get some heat into the car in those first arctic 10 mins!

It'd be interesting to hear if anyone else has the same issue with their beastie...

Boots.