Heater for TXi

[braindamage]

On 5/1/2020 at 4:45 PM, holden said:

When I ordered my ‘13 TXi with factory heater ... they installed the manual switch underneath the throttle. Reason? They only use 1 mux under the dash ... both the 2 from the wakeboard boats. The heater is in the missing mux.  I talked to Malibu and said that I was expecting all the switched to be on the touch screens.  Took a little convincing but they covered the installation of the 2nd mux and the rewiring by my dealer — the discussion was around the way they had said every thing was on the MTC ... strangely though none of the MTCs has the heated drivers seat option. That is still a manual switch on my boat.

@braindamage good luck ... you may not be able to hook it up unless they changed the setup from ‘13.

hmmm...I got a copy of the wiring diagrams.  There is no mention of heater or Aux in any of them.  It seemed at first that the ACC/Heater is wired out on a harness called "Power Module".  I hoped this was it, as all the other wires on the harness going into/out of the Viper module have an obvious label and the pinouts are labeled ACC CAN High/ACC CAN Low.  Not sure what those mean.  I rang out the wiring and toggled the heater output from the MTC and no joy.  The weird thing is that when switching the MTC Heater to "High" or "Low", it would momentarily change, then go back to "Heater".  Not sure if this is just the screen display or what. 

You may be right...hardwire switch may be the best bet.

Ideas?

[UWSkier]

Mellow=harshed

[4skinuts]

I am trying to access my heater. What is the best way to find the screw heads buried in the carpet on the kick plate?

[UWSkier]

Strong magnet?

[dalt1]

5 hours ago, UWSkier said:

Strong magnet?

Most the stainless screws are not magnetic. If they are buried in carpet, take a steel putty knife and dig around till you hit them.

[braindamage]

15 hours ago, dalt1 said:

Most the stainless screws are not magnetic. If they are buried in carpet, take a steel putty knife and dig around till you hit them.

^^this. I used a screwdriver 

[holden]

On 5/3/2020 at 10:32 AM, braindamage said:

. You may be right...hardwire switch may be the best bet.

Ideas?

What I called the MUX are the black boxes ... not sure if they are viper or medallion. 
 

I don’t have a 100% confirmation of what you are seeing with your experiences but I’m guessing what is happening with the toggling is it knows it doesn’t have the module behind it.  Try and see if the ballast switches work the same way and you’ll have a better idea.

im guessing you’ll end up with a manual switch.

[braindamage]

I’ll be digging into this install tomorrow. I’m considering 2 options:

option 1: do a normal behind the driver kick plate install or

option 2:

1) install heater under spotter seat. The height is perfect and I think it’ll make the vent hose routing easier. I recognize this will greatly reduce my storage space, but I think it’ll be a cleaner install.

2) I will try to cut the one of the pullout tubes to extend the hose to 8-10’ to allow to pull to back seat. I think I’ll either tape a couple of the stock holders together or I’ll buy some PVC.

3) one of the vent hoses will be standard pullout for spotter

4) the 3rd hose will angle 90deg and exit into the bow walkthrough. That way it’ll reach the bow if needed, no kit will otherwise vent to the driver.

5) I’ll mount the 2-fixed vent tubes through my bonus spotter seat that sets in the bow walkway so that it’ll still vent to the driver when it’s there. It’s removable so my plan is to align the exit from the spotter to the input on the right side of the bonus seat. I’m the base is angled so I’ll have to find something to keep the air from just spilling into the walkway.

6) I’ll mount the switch next to the driver’s leg, though maybe I’ll see if there’s a spot near the spotter seat (maybe the glove box?) so I may not have to fish the wires to the other side of the ski locker.

7) I haven’t verified that there is ample room under the deck to route the water lines to the storage space behind the spotter seat. That might pooch this whole plan.

Thoughts?

Edited May 18, 2020 by braindamage

[Eagleboy99]

Do the driver's feet and under the observer seat.  I have the pullout  between the two seats and it is not as good as I would like.  I have toyed with the idea of T-ing the pullout and  adding a foot heater for the observer.

[braindamage]

Some pics looking down from above the spotter seat facing the bow:

 I could just mount the 3rd vent back and the driver could just pull it out...or...

I could run the hose 90 deg. This option would have to vent thru the jump seat, and I’m not sure how I’d contain the tube as there’s not enough room to stack the hot tubes on top of each other.

third photo of the gap between the spotter and jump seat bases. The jump seat is angled, so it’s about 1/2-1” gap

[braindamage]

After consideration, The only way to make the vent route through the jump seat and have it accessible to the bow is to mount it in the walkthrough. I can cut a notch in the jump seat back and side to pull it through to the driver.

the only downside to this is that the vent will have to make a 180 deg turn immediately out of the heater which will reduce airflow.

I found a place for the switch, just below the spotter cushion along the front wall. This way the driver of spotter can control it and I don’t have to snake the wires all the way to the breaker panel. I’ll just put in an in-line fuse. It’ll be hot to the battery, but I’m ok with that. Does anyone know what wire is the permissive for the amp? I could splice off that as well if I wanted to .

[ahopkins22LSV]

Personally I’d mount under the drivers dash still. I wouldn’t want to loose that storage area. If you out the pull outs in the drivers kick plate, you’ll still have enough length to get to all passengers while skiing

[braindamage]

5 minutes ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

Personally I’d mount under the drivers dash still. I wouldn’t want to loose that storage area. If you out the pull outs in the drivers kick plate, you’ll still have enough length to get to all passengers while skiing

So you’d remove the kick plate permanently?

[dalt1]

I have replaced the hose in the hot tubes on both my last 2 boats and was able to get about 10 ft of hose in there. When new, it's only about 6 feet long.

[ahopkins22LSV]

1 minute ago, braindamage said:

So you’d remove the kick plate permanently?

No, I stood mine up more vertically, but I’d install behind it just like the factory does but I would mount the pullout tubes in the kick plate so there is better access to the passengers. 

[braindamage]

27 minutes ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

No, I stood mine up more vertically, but I’d install behind it just like the factory does but I would mount the pullout tubes in the kick plate so there is better access to the passengers. 

I don’t get how it all fits. Pointing up, the heater is 10” high. The toe kick is 12” high and angled backwards. The hot tubes are 4” high. Even if I mount the toe kick vertically, there’s not enough height to it all.

edit. The kick plate is 13” tall, mounted at an angle is 12” total height

i also don’t get how it’s accessible? Do you have any pics of the factory install? Maybe that’ll help 

Edited May 18, 2020 by braindamage

[ahopkins22LSV]

I don’t, sorry. It was all behind there some how though! I even got a 10” sub in a sealed box behind the kick plate. There should be plenty of space behind it. I believe the factory mounts the heater vertically. 

[braindamage]

5 minutes ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

I don’t, sorry. It was all behind there some how though! I even got a 10” sub in a sealed box behind the kick plate. There should be plenty of space behind it. I believe the factory mounts the heater vertically. 

Did all 3 hoses pull out from underneath the helm?

[ahopkins22LSV]

4 minutes ago, braindamage said:

Did all 3 hoses pull out from underneath the helm?

No, the boat came from the factory with the pull out in the bow walkway and two fixed on the kickpanel. When I added the sub I added an additional pullout tube in the kick panel and left the one fixed. The fixed tubes were mounted to a bracket on the top of the panel pointing down at the drivers feet. Personally I’d mimic the setup the VTX comes with now:

[braindamage]

14 minutes ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

No, the boat came from the factory with the pull out in the bow walkway and two fixed on the kickpanel. When I added the sub I added an additional pullout tube in the kick panel and left the one fixed. The fixed tubes were mounted to a bracket on the top of the panel pointing down at the drivers feet. Personally I’d mimic the setup the VTX comes with now:

here's a pic of a finished install.  One hose connects to the bow walk-through.  I don't know where the others go...

[UWSkier]

I vote kick panel install too.  Put foot vent by driver, second pullout in walkway, third vent to dash with a directional outlet.  That's how we have my dad's set up.  Reasons this works well:

1. 90% of the heater use is for skiing and 50% of that is without a spotter.

2. Dash vent works great as a window defogger on those muggy August mornings

3. With wind blocker in, you can turn the outlet of the dash vent to channel heat along the windshield over to the observer side.

4. The observer still has the pullout tube if they want it.

If you want a heat tube available to the rear seat passengers, I'd order a y and a bunch of extra tubing to run along the gunnel.  Could probably tuck another heat tube hidden away in there with a closable vent.

[braindamage]

I think I have figured out a layout. All pullout hot tubes. One vent goes to walkthrough as in pic. The other 2 mount at top of kickplate, one on either side. The angle makes it complicated, but I can play with making it more vertical if needed.

we use our boat for 2-things. Early morning ski sets (need heater) and evening sunset cruises (need heater). About 50% of our evening cruises have Friends/family in the backseat, where they don’t have wind protection. It’s important for me to have a heater back there.

For the back, I could figure out a way to house 15’ of tubing that exits at the kickplate.  The other option that comes to mind is to just cut a hole in the kickplate and run tubing along the floor by the driver’s right leg and have a 10’ hot tube exit at the back of the driver’s seat.

either way, I need to figure out how to replace the current 6’ of tubing that’s in the hot tubes now.

[braindamage]

I called Heatercraft to ask about adding length to the housing or removing the old tube and replacing with a longer tube. It was the least helpful call I’ve ever had with any company. They basically said “no”.

[UWSkier]

I feel like there's probably a way to do this with some PVC couplings and some creativity.

[justgary]

I never got around to installing any hot tubes.  I have one hose loose at the driver's feet (very useful to keep feet warm, or hold between your legs and let the air blow up), and a second one that is long enough to reach the back seat.  I keep it coiled up behind the throttle panel.  I can hand it to anyone in the boat.  I plugged the third outlet with a hunk of closed-cell foam. 

Most of the time, I don't bother telling anyone else that they could have heat and I just hog it all myself in the driver's seat.