Heating for KT3

[Stygian7]

Planning for pickup of the Kristi and contemplating heating options. Do they have any heat from the air cooled VW? If so, does it work to speak of?

I’m thinking a diesel parking heater may be a good option. When my wife agreed to the purchase, she said she didn’t care as long as it was warm.

 

[luvthemvws]

You won't need an auxiliary heater in a Kristi. In fact, you will struggle to find ways to get excess heat OUT. An air cooled VW moves a tremendous amount of air over the hot cylinder head fins and delivers vast amounts of warm air to the interior.

 

[Stygian7]

Good to know. The VW beetle I drove some in high school had terrible heating. I don’t doubt that there was something wrong with it though, considering it sat in a field for a decade or so before it was brought back into service.

 

[Rover’n]

Each iteration of the Kristi snowcat featured more ways to cool the engine bay. My ‘63 has a vent on the front and an additional row of round vents on the passenger side as well as the riser vent on top of the hood. I notice that yours has the firewall below the dashboard, which will contain more heat in the engine bay. Nonetheless, all that air sweeping over the engine oil tower has to go somewhere and it usually winds up heating the passenger area. I kinda like the warmth, but often run with the gull door open.

By the way, on longer overnight trips I carry a propane buddy heater which I can fire up for really cold morning starts. About fifteen minutes blowing into the bay really helps.

 

[KT3survivor]

Drive a kristi once and you will be contemplating how to put vintage air AC on the thing somehow.

Just idling is enough to warm the cab in a blizzard at tree line on the continental divide.