I have a non-working toggle on the dash that is marked heater. Since there was no power to it, I decided to give it some and see what happened. I turns out it is for the bus blower. The bus heat is disconnected. The coils are still there, but the hot water plumbing is disconnected in the engine compartment. I do not know if they were removed due to coolant leaks or what. The blower feeds air from under the floor. It may be ducted, but I am guessing that it just uses a space beneath the floor as a plenum. It seems to me that I could maybe revitalize the original system for over-the-road use. It is much too noisy and energy hungry for much else. But I lean toward the idea of removing the blower, if I can get to it without destroying the cabinets in front of it, and hopefully find a way to get the coils out too. I would have a nice weight/space bonus, and I could improve upon the existing RV systems if I need more heat. What do y'all say?
I removed the over the road heater (no A/C since it was a Portland Or bus) but kept the heating heat exchanger (large like 5ft by 2ft and 6 inches thick). I used the space to mount my septic tanks (85gal gray, 45 gal black and 2 8D deep cycle Lifeline AGM). After cleaning and having it pressure tested I mounted it length wise on the floor inside and built the hall cabinets on top. It is powered with two 14" 12v radiator fans with a hand operated ball valve to turn off in warm weather. It works really well and puts out a lot of heat fast. It does take a lot of space, but I still have not filled up my bus with stuff, so I'm not worried. Good Luck, TomC
I plan to remove mine and I bought a variable speed 24volt 80K BTU military unit that is much smaller but should put out adequate heat since I insulated the bus.