Webasto FBH: fright of my life!
 

This tourer is the first 75 I've had that has a FBH fitted. I've had it since October and have just about got everything up to spec and straight now. The heater was never a priority so I've not looked at it, presuming that it was dead anyway.

This morning (cold, frosty), I moved the car about 50 yards onto my drive to start work on a couple of things. Switched it off, walked away, and thought, "Hmm, strong diesel fumes this morning. Must be the cold weather." Then turned round and saw (quite a lot of) light blue exhaust fumes emitting from the passenger-side wheel arch. Zoomed back to the car, opened the bonnet, and found the FBH running! Heard the sound of a fan or pump running and a muted sound of what I presumed was the burner. It stopped of its own accord after about 20 seconds of my opening the bonnet.

Played around with ignition positions & engine start to see if it would run again, and it did. (I'm not clear if it fired up with ignition-only (the fan/pump did) but seemed to do so with engine running.)

So am I right in thinking that it came on with the engine start because it was <5ºC, and that it guffed out smoke due to general inactivity and/or carbon build-up, and that in fact it most likely has been running on previous cold mornings that I wasn't aware of? I can't remember the last time I used the car before 10:00am and it's not generally dead cold where I live. I surely though would have known if it had been running?

I've unplugged the two connectors meantime...

Dougie.

It does come on at 5 degrees but I think that it has to be turned on to do so ( I stand to be corrected).

My FBH emitted so much smoke when I turned it on after purchase despite the seller assuring me that it worked fine that I felt sure that the neighbours would call the fire brigade.

A trip up to Trebor and Devilish in the Midlands revealed what they described as the most carbonned up FBH that they'd ever seen.

They swapped out the burner for one of their cleaned up reconditioned ones and turned on to still be met with clouds of smoke and we had to change the exhaust which was sooted up as well.

Sounds like yours needs stripping out and cleaned.

There is a how to on this site and the boys mentioned above are the guys to contact for help and advice.

I'm sure it must do otherwise the car would've been warmed up to whatever extent, and it wasn't (covered in thick frost).

Thanks for the info (and the laugh about the fire brigade - it certainly unfurred a few arteries this morning :D). I'll experiment with it and try to assess when & how it runs.

Do you know if the exhaust has any components inside it or is it just hollow?

Dougie.

You will find all your questions answered in this thread below.

https://the75andztclub.co.uk/forum/s...ad.php?t=53896

Excellent, thanks for that. I've read several but not seen that one. :}

Dougie.

I see that Arctic has supplied a link to a comprehensive guide, but very quickly my original exhaust had a silencer on it but we swapped it for a clean straight through one at the time so there must be two models of exhaust.

I still have the silencer one in the shed and have been meaning to try and clean it out sometime.

I kind of like the jet engine effect on the unsilenced one to be honest, it lets me know its working, ( from about 100 yards away)

both my cars have straight thru exhausts and I dont find them that loud. I dont get any smoke from either.
Devilish can or could supply a simple remote control to turn the FBH on. There are more sophisticated ways such as a text message and also turning the cabin fan on. I recommend fitting something that allows you to turn the FBH on 15 - 20 minutes before you want to use the car.

I once started the FBH when the car was on short grass, found a small burnt circle once I moved off.

Macafee2

more general FBH info here should you need it:

https://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/for...d.php?t=310873