 Good day. Good day everybody the time has come. I'm here to rebuild the bunk heater to do it right Like I was telling you in previous vlogs my friend Jim here From the States sent me a rebuild kit and everything I need new glow plug All the tools I need new screens. I bought a new blower motor For the bunk heater as well, so I've already been here working this Morning Getting it out of here and here it is to be rebuilt I just want to show you I had some difficulty getting it out, but I figured it out. So for this we're gonna need the flashlight Okay, I'm gonna crawl underneath here I'm gonna show you where This is here. Okay, right there you see it Right there is I Take those four bolts out disconnect the exhaust the intake and the fuel line And pull it out of there. It wasn't that hard actually now that I know how to do it It would be pretty quick, but I had to figure out how to do it first so that was fun some YouTube videos and Now I'm a bunk heater remover expert you might say probably not So as I film this video today, I want to give a disclaimer that this is not a how-to video This is not a tutorial video. This is not a training video. This is not a how do you rebuild a Bunk heater video. I'm not I'm not a teacher for that I'm just showing you my experience as I learn and how I did. I've never done this before Sort of have no idea what I'm doing though. Like I said earlier. I watched some YouTube videos So I'm practically an expert now So don't uh, don't I hope you didn't come here Hoping to learn how to rebuild an S-bar heater. Just so you know if you're new and that's why you clicked on the video Wanted to let you know that right away, but please stick around for the rest of the video I have tons of other videos online Subscribe to the channel. We make daily videos Mostly about trucking, but also what my family a little bit just the whole lifestyle in general Let's get to it So I've gotten it out of the truck now to be a lot easier to work on it than having it underneath there It was very difficult because in my truck the bunk doesn't Fold up like in some other trucks some trucks, you know the bed flips up mine doesn't do that Let me show you so looking into the side here. That's my Odyssey mattress. It's amazing This bed frame does not fold up and that mattress does not come out of the truck It is too big if I take it out. It's not going back in So I had to get the mattress out put it over the front seats to open up this area here It's a big pain and then I had to unscrew this panel here. I put that over there on the other side To get into here That's where the bunk heater is. It's there's a wall underneath here and over there and here It's blocked in there. There's no other way to get at it, but like this It's a big pain in the butt. I've got my flashlight now I'm gonna see if I can shine it in there for you from here You can see that's where the bunk heater was right there. The blower tube is on this side here on the inside That's my heat my truck heat for the bunk But that right there it's hidden away in there Don't get me wrong. It's in a very convenient out-of-the-way place But if you want to work on it or fix it, it's very inconvenient But it's the way it is. It's the way the truck is. I didn't do that. I bought the truck like that I probably would have done it the same way to be honest. Where else are you gonna put it? Maybe one day once I redo this truck and refurbish it and everything Maybe I'll put in a bunk that just lifts up, you know on shocks or something See if that's even an option. I don't but I'm gonna start rebuilding this now See what I can see what I can come up with hopefully we can get this thing working so what this thing does if you're not familiar with trucks or With these this is an air-tronic D2 as far heater It runs off diesel fuel from my fuel tanks and a little bit of battery power very very little The only thing that uses battery power is the fan that's in here You open this up This fan here uses a little bit of electricity I was told that the amount of power it uses is equivalent to about one LED light So it's sort of like leaving one LED light on your trailer overnight It's not gonna kill your battery. You take a long time to kill your battery. So it can run overnight No problem And then it takes a drip of diesel fuel and it keeps your cab warm It produces heat and blows heat into your cab that way you can stay warm at night And you don't have to idle your engine your whole big diesel engine at night Because that costs a lot of money and maintenance to constantly be idling your engine You don't want to do that for long periods of time. It gums up your engine your injectors Wears it out And you want that engine to last long because that's the most expensive part of this whole operation is that motor You want to save that as much as possible So I always say it's cheaper to buy a new starter than to rebuild your engine Every time that truck stops turn it off. I Also have one of these it's a little bit different, but it's the same idea it heats up the fluids in my engine That's in this little white box. Oh, you can't see it behind my tarps back there. There's a little white box That's where I keep that one, but That's an engine heater So my engine stays warm and my cab stays warm and I don't have to idle the truck It's cheaper to do that than to rebuild an engine and it's cheaper to shut it off Every time you stop every time you stop anywhere. I'm not talking like traffic lights or anything. I leave it running at the traffic lights Don't worry, but You shut it off as much as you can and you start it up when you need it and as soon as you don't need the engine Some people always say oh, but that'll wear out your starter faster. Yeah, I know Wouldn't you rather this starter be worn out than the entire engine? Place a starter few hundred bucks An engine that's like fifty thousand dollars a fifty to ninety thousand dollars depending on what do you want? You want a new one you want to rebuild you want an in-frame rebuild you want a complete top-to-bottom rebuild 50 to 90 to 50 to a hundred thousand dollars These things brand new cost about twelve hundred dollars thousand twelve hundred dollars somewhere in there around a thousand dollar mark These rebuild kits or you can get for like a hundred dollars and some way cheaper The only thing that's not covered in this is my time. I could be at home right now. I would like to be with my family, but Right now since we're going through the IVF process for fertility and stuff. We're trying to have another child It's very very expensive. We just spent eighteen thousand dollars Last week and that's just the beginning of the second round of IVF We're gonna be between twenty five and thirty thousand dollars said and done when it's all done. So With that being said that's why I'm trying to save a little bit of money and fix this myself if I can at least try I have to at least try to fix it myself and if I still can't get it fixed well then I'll go to my friends at PBX Peterbilt of Steinbeck and Humbly walk in the door there with my tail between my legs and my head hanging and so I tried if I couldn't fix it Can you fix it, please? Now that I have it out, I mean if I can't get it running now I have it out. I'll just bring them this here Take it fix it. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get this done though I hope I've got a new little plug or sort of part under plug for it and fan motor I'll clean it all. I'll get all the so out of there Once again, I'm not trying to teach you how to do this. This is sort of just for entertainment. This is a day in my life If you're new to the channel again, go check out my playlists. I've been making videos for 12 years They're all organized in playlists. You can check them out. This is just part of the life of owning a truck You'd agrees that All right, so we've got it Mostly taken apart already. I got to take out these three screws in here yet to get to the combustion chamber I've taken out the glow plug or the the plug already It's looking pretty sooty that came out of Sort of I'm not gonna be able to get a good shot in there, but it's black with soot This is the new one You can see right beside it. It's already Already a lot cleaner get that installed. I'm gonna get in here clean it all out get some new screens in there Screens are in here as well. You can see these little Small guys in there if my camera decides what it was to focus on come on camera. Work with me. It's not very nice There we go Switching to my gopro because it's just it's it's too much to get that camera to focus all the time So let's look at this again Let's take it over here and show you So this is the old plug and this in here Is the new one you can see that this one's a little black Let these new screens in here We're making progress so much easier to vlog with this I have a gopro hero 10 in my hand right now And my other camera that I was using if you're new to the channel is a sony a7c Wonderful camera. This camera is amazing But uh, it takes a lot more effort to use it gives a much better quality shot It also does very good in low light because I have this uh Tamron 17 to 28 millimeter lens on it It does amazing in low light. So I like to use it when it's dark outside It's not dark in here. So I don't need to use that. It's just Anyways side tracked Let's get these got one out here already. Let's get these other screws out of here Then we'll clean out that combustion chamber switch out the screens put the new plug in And put it all back together new gaskets right here and uh See what it looks like inside that chamber It's gonna be black with soot I don't know when the last time this thing has been serviced. I bought the truck with it and I've had the truck This is my second winter with the truck now Uh, the owner before me had this truck for eight years owner before that had it for uh Five years somewhere. It's a 2008 So, yeah, I know it's dirty right now. It's wintertime outside those of you who live in better climates than me Aren't you lucky It's very hard to keep them clean. I try to keep the salt rinsed off at least but it's a story for another vlog I gotta get this done because I want to be home for a separate time if possible But you know me if it's a two hour three four hour job, it'll take me all day So this is the burner motor, I believe And I might want to replace this thing too I'm gonna see if I can uh Yeah, it's dirty Let's see if I can clean this out as good as I can Inside here's the chamber Look how dirty and sooty that is here. Let me get the camera out here. I mean the flashlight Uh, it's pretty dirty. Yeah, and there's the exhaust out of there Get this cleaned out the best we can and uh, I mean This thing here I gotta pull a screen filter screen out of there and replace it I mean, I guess we could soak this in carburetor cleaner, maybe But hopefully uh, this will do the trick though without doing that If it still doesn't go, I guess the next option would be to replace this part. I should have bought this part I didn't uh think of that So I caved I went and asked my dad for some help These are his wire brushes. I'm cleaning out the the burn chamber in here both soot It's working very well. I needed his help with this Inside there. I don't know if you can see it see that little circle. There's a screen in there the old screen Did not want to come out for the life of me. I couldn't get it out and I was just destroying it trying to get it out So I went to dad's shop Which is nearby here Very similar to this one. It's his and he's got all the tools known to mankind there. So I knew uh He would have it And guess what? He didn't have a tool for this So you know what he did? He made one There ever was a superhero. His name would be dad So to get in here, I needed a tool that would go in and have a hook Go in and hook it out, right? So he grabs a little piece of uh steel wire And he grabs his vice grip and he grabs his grinder Just bends it to shape Ding ding zing zing zing. There you go. That's the tool just Didn't quite work as well as we'd hope because I had already destroyed it trying to take it out here with the wrong tools So, uh, we got it up to nearer to the surface here And then he had these tiny little needle nose like these long needle nose pliers And we were able to get in there and pull it out And then uh put the new one in so Thanks dad You know, I was telling him I try to do everything myself You know I'm 35 years old. I can do it myself most times But it's nice to know he's right nearby if I Need his help He got it out of there. We got the new screen in there the new filter So now I'm pretty much, uh, just cleaning out the burn chamber getting all the soot out of there And I'm gonna put everything back together put it back in the truck screw it in Plug it in actually before I screw it in. I'll probably test it Because if it still doesn't work, I'm gonna have to replace it or bring it to someone someone else But I think this will work. I think this is gonna work So I've got a few more steps to do here and uh And we'll be hopefully good to go but I should have probably bought a new burner But we cleaned this out really good. So I think it'll still be good. I think it'll still be good I'm putting the burner back in It's got a new gasket on there Put that in real tight Now that I know how to do all of this this is actually very simple And I don't know why I would pay someone to do all of this Unless if I did it wrong and it doesn't work. Well, then I understand why I would pay somebody Let's see. Let's see It's all in there All sealed up get the new plug in there Yeah, get that on there nice and tight Mm-hmm Mm-hmm Now I gotta put the new plug in this is the old one This is probably what the main problem was to be honest He's got a cover on it. Take that off So much better real careful and it comes with a special tool The socket with a slit on the sides that you can get the wires through there, right? You can get the socket over the wires and the wires stick out the side Like Like this Put the wires through there Right that over that Screw it in make sure that these wires don't get tangled up in it though You don't first we can do it but with our hands There we go. There we go. Oh, oh, oh, you see these wires. They always want to have a party. They want to get involved It's isn't about you guys Not about you guys Okay, so that's tight now. I slip this little slit over these here That go down over that come on Come on. There we go. See I can tighten that on really good This And without any put without putting any pressure on the wires you want to slip this seal Cover into there There okay That's in there now And that should be the main Problem like that should be the main fix to the problem. We got all this put together Now we need to Get the gasket for here and then put the new the new blower motor on this one Goes on here like this Gasket, is this the gasket? Noop Is this the gasket? Noop Is this the gasket? Yes, it is Correctly There we go Make sure that we have everything done so that once we seal the gasket. We don't got to open it again Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Okay Screw these on good tight And then we're ready to put it all back in its casing Go and hook it up in the truck turn it on see if it'll see if it'll work The moment of truth As long as this is all it takes and this works Like this was very simple There's nothing to be worried about if you guys are thinking about rebuilding your s bar or two Or just cleaning it out If you have the time i'm lucky i have a fortunate to have a warm shop to work in But even at summer in summertime if the weather's nice where you are this is really simple to do It's really easy to do you got to go underneath your truck Disconnect the mount there's four bolts on the bottom here in the mount and the fuel line intake and the exhaust Just disconnect that from the bottom underneath the truck and go inside literally just pull it up pull it out And then it's just a few screws you take off the blower motor replace the gasket make sure you go on amazon or something get a For me it was an airtronic d2 rebuild kit. This was sent to me by a friend by jim. Thanks jim I really do appreciate you sending this rebuild kit to me With all the gaskets and everything that I need And uh, you take that all apart you take the burner out You have to have one of these special tools though and this comes with the rebuild kit that jim sent me It is the socket that you need But it has that slit on the side you see Like i was showing you that so that you can get over the wires because you can't take the wires off the plug It'll make perfect sense once you get in there And there's a ton of videos you can watch online that are tutorials I'm going to repeat one more time disclaimer. It's not a tutorial. I'm not trying to teach you how to do things I'm just sharing my experience of fixing it with you It's a vlog It's for entertainment purposes That's what I am. I'm an entertainer. I'm not an educator. I'm not a trainer I mean, I can share you like I'm sure you could learn something off this here And I can I try to share you with you some tips on the road things that work for me But I always tell you go double check make sure that I'm right I'm not here trying to tell you how to do things. I'm just Sharing my life with you just chatting with you online That's the purpose of my channel is just to hang out not to uh I want to be clear about that because I don't want to act like I know what I'm doing all the time and I'm a normal guy. I'm just like you I'm learning as I go learning new things every day I don't know at all. I wish I did because I would make it a lot easier No, I don't know at all. I know very little sometimes These tightened up here. I'm gonna have to get a better angle on this So I tighten these up with my screwdriver, but I'm gonna go in with the uh The socket wrench anyways just to make sure it's good and tighten that that gasket has a good seal, right So I'm gonna take this off here. I'm just gonna put it onto my Just to give it a little bit more of a seal, right? I want to make sure it's tight Oh Without stripping it josh Not too tight some soft metal on these screws Make sure that that gasket it's got a good seal. Okay. Oh josh Again Don't wreck your bits. This is the old gold. Oh, look at this The old gold plug just fell off the table Is that what it's called a glow plug or is it a spark plug? It just fell off the table anyways and literally just broke off That's how fragile brittle it was. So this was probably definitely the problem I couldn't even reuse this now if I wanted to it broke Okay. Well, hopefully putting the new one in here solves everything right while I was in there. I cleaned it all out Put a new blower motor I'm pretty happy I think I'm pretty happy. I think this is gonna work. I have a good feeling We're all done now. So now I've got to put the wiring back on here now this The green goes in the center And there they are different sizes. So they're not supposed to fit into each other's plugs That's what they tell me anyways, so make sure that all these wires aren't all tangled Okay This What does this get plugged into? Oop oop oop oop Tape it right into Here All right. All these wires are in here correctly I kind of want that to go Under those we're almost to the moment of truth I've got this all put back together. I've got to put the shell back on now or put it back in its shell Which means yes this in here like this Make sure that all these wires are In there appropriate places inside here you can see All these wires have got to be in there Proper places so they're not rubbing on everything. Okay. Got the bottom on Attempt to put the top on Okay, there we go Click and stopping you on this side click Okay, there it is At the end this rubber seal back on the bottom Gently that seals against the floor Okay, so now we'll go throw it back in the truck. We'll hook up the fuel line And uh the air intake exhaust it's easy just thump thump thump Before I screw it down and screw it in there. I'm gonna uh, you know what? I may secure it with just two for now Just to secure it in there and try turning it on see if it works and if it works good great if not Well, it's not a waste of a day because I learned one way not to fix one of these then But there's nothing more I can do this thing is now rebuilt It's not like rebuilding a motor where you got to take pistons and rings out, right? This is All you can do to fix this if it still doesn't work. There's bigger issues and I got to replace the whole thing. I'm pretty sure So let's hope that that's not the case give it a shot Come on blue right there and go grab the tools that I need I won't need too many tools in here. Actually, I'll just need to Put it into its spot and I'll have to go under the truck Down there Hook everything up. Are you nervous? I'm nervous I hope it works climb in under that mattress into the back there So you can see me Nervous laughter nervous laughter Push that up with my head There's that up with my head You got to get into here Just a bit and stay there. It's up there. Okay fun fun fun Oh Yes, yes, okay All right Okay, so Here's the heater. That's where it's got to go There's a plug for it there See it's pretty simple. You just throw it right in the amount there and then secure it from the bottom Once I can do just like that You know what I can probably test it like this without hooking any of that. Oh, I got to hook the fuel up Anyway, it won't work without hooking the fuel up Okay Well, I know you can't really see it, but it's in here now now for my least favorite part Going under the truck and hooking everything up under there. It's really awkward and But it's it's It's got to be done. All right, here's all the Tools and parts I'm gonna need under there. I don't know what I'm trying to do All right, let's put you there Come with me my tools We're going on an adventure The adventure nobody asked for Where are you? There you are. Okay It's done Now for the big test Yeah, he's my hands get sweaty Yeah, okay, so Everybody cross your fingers cross your toes So I can turn it on from right here We'll see what happens as I have power The red light came on so it has power Maybe it takes a little bit to boot up. I don't hear it turning on yet though You can hear that now So I've got the fan motor on just to check the blower motor that I replaced All it does is it blows air just straight airs like a fan So that's working Let's try the heater again We'll turn that off That was not working before so at least I know the new blower motor is working And the unit is getting power We got the fan running you hear that clicking? It's coming from over here. There's the burner It's working It's working. Yes I took the cover off the top here just to see what was going on and uh, because it just needed a second to get going I know you can't really see anything because it's so dark, but got the cover back on And it's blowing hot air And it's sounding a lot healthier than before Oh that feels good I'm gonna run it through a couple of tests here just to make sure but I think we got it Okay Now to mode here listen to how much healthier that sounds That's how it's supposed to sound Thank you Okay, well Like I said a couple more tests yet And then we got to take it on the real test of taking it out on the road and seeing how it does on the road But I have a feeling I have a feeling I think we did it. I think it's finally Finally fixed There's no smoke I learned how to do something new If you've been following my channel over the past like four months, you know how satisfied and happy I am right now I've tried everything aside from pulling it all apart and Cleaning it out putting a new burner in there or a new uh gold plug New gaskets new fan motor saved myself several hundred dollars in a repair And over a thousand dollars in replacing it. Let's not get too excited though. I'm trying not to get too excited. We still got to Still got to finish the tests here Yeah, I really need to grease that fifth wheel This calls for a celebratory Pepsi so the test that I ran now was I turned the temperature all the way down to the point where the heater turned itself off Because it was warm enough and then I crank it all the way back up to see if it'll restart itself And start the heater up again. It sounds so much healthier than it did before too. I hope it Stays like this, but now that I know how to take it apart I think this should be an annual thing that you all do with your s bar. I'm not again I shouldn't be telling you what to do. I'm no expert I think that it's a good idea to I should reword it. I think it's a good idea to Clean those things out once a year It's not once every two years like what do you guys think? Let me know down below in the comment section. I think what I'm going to do is every Every fall before it starts getting cold And you start it up and test it and what I'll probably do is take it out again Clean it all out redo the gaskets. Maybe I don't have to read like uh Reinstall the plug every time But if I just put new gaskets in there get in there with a wire brush clean it all out Make sure that everything can breathe properly So that by the time wintertime hits it's good to go and I don't got to worry about this in february all right now to get this mattress back in the back And get it ready to go as we'll be leaving on a trip tomorrow I don't have anything planned right now on me But uh, it is a holiday here at home. So no one's in the office today I'll have to call in first thing tomorrow morning and uh, I'll probably head out late in the morning So I'm thinking because if I call them in the morning, I'll probably call them they get in around seven So I'll give them an hour to get settled down get their computers booted up figure out what's going on Call them about eight eight thirty figure out what's going on Come to the truck get the truck started ready to go be there before noon to hook up to a trailer and then Go from there, you know, maybe we'll go to kanora. Maybe we'll go west. Maybe we'll I don't know. All I know is I got to stay close to home now because of brit's whole IVF We've got a bunch of appointments coming up. So I'll be staying in my usual region for a bit But we can't drive with the mattress like this. So Let's get this thing back in here. Okay. How did I do this? How did I do this? Okay, come on There it is this Here I'm just got to get the sheet on there get the bedding in here Get all my stuff ready to go You know, I gotta put the sheet on before I put my pillow back there and we can head back home Ah, there's like a thousand other projects. I need to Get finished yet, too But we got the big one done. That's all that matters Have you seen my new dash camera yet? Okay, I won't turn on now. Does it run on battery? It has to be plugged in, right? Yeah, I don't have it plugged in right now It has uh three cameras one two three. I believe like these ones can flip around. I believe that uh They're probably designed to have one camera facing the driver one camera facing the passenger one camera facing forward I have them all facing forward I have this one facing this Fender down here that one facing that side of my hood that way and then there's one on the other side They're facing straight forward So I get a 180 degree picture In front of me. It's a story for another time though Okay, here's all my stuff for the truck We got to get it in there Where's my sheet? I think this is my sheet under here there my floor towels from the floor Let's get this thing ready to go This video turned out to be over 40 minutes long all in one piece. I might have to split it up into two videos So like I'll say it in the video those of you who've been watching over the past few months You know how much frustration I've had uh with that heater not working properly And it made me have to idle my truck more than I wanted to which costs me money a lot of money And in some places you're not even supposed to be idling your truck overnight I'm thinking of new york here. I don't go there very often, but uh, it's just good to have that thing working It's good to feel accomplished like just Knowing that I was able to fix it now. I know how to do that. It's actually very easy Uh, I thought it'd be a lot harder Once you know how to get it out of there and it'll I could probably do that in a couple of hours now Instead of taking a whole day doing it But half the day was just learning how to do it I'm finishing this video up here about a week in the future not quite a week few days in the future I took it out on a trip used it through the night. It was minus 19 Celsius Uh last night in the truck Bunk heater worked great through the whole night kept the truck nice and toasty warm And I was able to start up the truck in the morning and get going so It's 100 fixed Finally happy with that. So No point in replacing it. I think the main problem was the glow plug in there I think that's what the main thing was because when it dropped on the floor The guy accidentally dropped the old one on the floor and it just Broke in half. It was so brittle already and so old. I think that was the main problem It wasn't igniting properly So once that was replaced, uh, and once all the soot was out of there too, it could breathe properly That helped a lot too. I'm sure but no point in replacing the whole thing when it's that easy to rebuild Like next time this happens to me. Oh just an afternoon and Clean it out through throwing new gaskets and glow plug on in there and you're good to go I I really honestly thought it would be a much bigger job. I was kind of worried that I wouldn't be able to finish I'm not a mechanic or technician. I'm not so But it worked this time One thing off the list of things to get done, but thanks for hanging out and watching this all right to the end I'm not sure if I split this into two videos or not. I might have to this has gotten pretty long but that was A little story of it So I'll see you guys tomorrow I have a new video coming then. Don't forget to hit subscribe and hit that bell So you don't miss it. We'll be back on the road