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Technical > Installation Guide

September 2004 Issue

Jeep Quickies - Quick and Easy Jeep Upgrades

Flex-a-Lite Mojave Heater Install

Energy Suspension Spring Bushing Install

Hot Time Tonight

story by Trent Riddle
photography by Trent Riddle & Courtesy of Flex-a-lite

Flex-a-lite Mojave Heater Install

Part of the romance and lure of a Jeep is the ability to remove the top and doors and feel the wind on your face. Anyone who’s done this will tell you that there’s nothing like running around in an open Jeep, nothing as fun, nothing as cool. The cool factor has a double meaning when the sun goes down or the weather gets bad. When this happens, the cooling breeze you enjoyed during the day can become a bone chilling wind. This is when you need a heater that works and works well. The trouble is, many old Jeeps and other 4x4s have poor or non-working heaters. Sometimes the parts to fix the stock heater are hard to come by or are expensive. Well, there is an alternative; it’s the Mojave Heater from Flex-a-lite.

The Mojave Heater is a simple hot water heater with a built in blower fan that will heat your rig as well and most likely better than the stock heater. As long as you feed the heater with hot water from the motor, the unit can provide you with a warm feeling when needed. Since the Mojave Heater has a built in fan, with three speeds, you can adjust the output to suit your needs. When the fan is off, the Mojave Heater will only produce a small amount of radiant heat, and this can be eliminated by installing a cable or vacuum operated heater valve to shut off the water flow to the heater core. Truly, we think this would only be needed if you do a lot of desert ‘wheeling in the summer.

In addition to its heater function, the Mohave Heater can be fitted with an optional Defroster Plenum. This piece simply slips over the front of the Mojave Heater. The two front facing heater vents swivel and pivot, allowing you to direct the heated air where you want it. Without the Defroster Plenum, the air will only flow straight back. A side opening in the Defroster Plenum provides a connection point for a defroster tube. This defroster tube can then be connected to any existing or custom-made defroster ducts. Heater air will always flow to the defroster, varying the front vent opening size will increase or decrease the amount of air flow the defroster sees.

One additional use to consider for a Mojave Heater is as an auxiliary heater. Even if your stock heater is working well, it may not be enough to warm your rear passengers. To keep those back seat drivers happy, you can install a Mojave Heater as a secondary, rear-mounted heater. If you want, you can install the switch within reach of the rear guests.

If you’ve ever wished for a warmer ride in your Jeep or 4x4, then consider installing a Mojave Heater. You can install one in an afternoon and it will keep you from shivering the next time you find yourself on the trail in cold weather.

Source: Flex-a-lite • P.O. Box 580 • Milton, WA 98354 • www.flex-a-lite.com

Ask about purchasing the Flex-a-lite Mojave Heater from www.4wheelparts.com

1. Once you have determined where you want to mount the Mojave heater, you can connect the heater hoses to the water in and out fittings. These hoses will need to be routed to the factory heater fittings on the motor.		2. If your application has holes in the firewall for heater hoses, that are unused, use them. If you need to drill your own holes for the heater hoses, be sure to install grommets to keep the hose from being cut on the edge of the sheet metal.
3. Flex-a-lite recommends connecting the fan power to a key hot power source. The best place to do this is at the fuse block. Use a test lamp or meter to find a power source that is hot with the key on only. Be sure to install the provided 15- amp fuse.		4. We varied from the Flex-a-lite instructions by installing the fuse close to the battery and using a previously installed relay under the dash to control the circuit from the key.
5. The control switch for the Mojave Heater is a simple rotary piece. Turning the knob will take the heater from off to low, medium or high-speed operation. We reused the factory Cigarette lighter bracket to mount our switch under the dash.		6. The Mojave Heater fits cleanly under the dash, even with the limited space on a flat fender. Some modification of the shifter cane may be required on manual transmission applications.
7. The Mojave Heater has the option of a front mounted Defroster Plenum. This plenum features adjustable and closeable front vents and a side opening for a defroster hose connection.		8. The Mojave Heater and also be installed behind the front seats as an auxiliary heater for your rear passengers. We’d recommend that if you use a Mojave Heater as an auxiliary unit, you plumb it in with copper tubing under the body and use small pieces of hose at the ends only. This will reduce your need to reroute heater hose from the motor to the heater every few years.

Eye Surgery

story & photos by Trent Riddle

Energy Suspension Spring Bushing Install

Your spring bushings serve several functions; first they provide a connection point for your suspension to be bolted to the vehicle. Second, they provide some vibration dampening between the road and the chassis and third they offer a slight amount of suspension flex, beyond what the springs themselves provide. As you can imagine, over time the flexing, vibrating, heat, cold, oil and ozone takes their toll on your stock rubber spring bushings. Eventually you can be left with just a bolt holding your springs in place. Before this happens, you should replace your worn spring bushings. You can use replacement rubber pieces or aftermarket polyurethane replacement bushings like we did. We found that Energy Suspension offers a front and rear kit for our Jeep with everything needed to swap out our worn black rubber pieces with new cool looking red urethane parts.

To replace your spring bushings, you’ll need to support your Jeep by the frame. This is because you’ll be unbolting the springs and don’t want the whole Jeep to come crashing down on you. We recommend doing only one corner at a time, as it will be easier and avoids the need for four jack stands. Once you have a corner of your Jeep frame on a jack stand, put a jack under the axle, on the same corner, to support the axle weight as you unbolt the spring. We found that the stock rear spring hangers needed to be unbolted because the rear shackles would not come out of the springs due to interference with the gas tank. This was O.K. because we where planning to upgrade all the spring hangers to new 4130 chrome-moly units.

With the spring hangers unbolted, you can let the suspension down a little on the one side and remove the stock spring shackle. At the front, you don’t have to remove the spring hangers, but if you do, the driver’s-side is mounted under the steering box mount. Replacing CJ spring bushings is usually easy; the bushings in the spring hangers and at the fixed end of the springs will simply slip out, and new bushing can be slipped in. At the shackle end of the spring the spring bushing has a metal sleeve in it that makes removal difficult. We’ve found that an 8-inch C-clamp, a piece of pipe and a bolt can be used as a press to remove them in the vehicle. If you don’t have an 8-inch C-clamp you can drill out the rubber around the sleeve until it drops out. The new urethane bushings are then pushed into the spring and the new steel sleeve inserted. Note that not only is it easier to do one corner at a time, but also one end of each spring at one time. We like to do the fixed end first, it’s the easiest.

Once your new spring bushings are in place, you can reinstall the springs and tighten the spring bolts. If you want, now’s the time to replace your spring hangers and spring shackles with new ones. The aftermarket spring hangers and shackles are much better than stock, but that’s a story for another issue. Installation time is about a half a day.

Be sure to completely read supplied manufacturer’s instructions prior to installing this product kit.

Source: Energy Suspension. • 1131 Via Callejon • San Clementy, CA 92673 • www.energysuspension.com

Buy Energy Suspension Spring Bushings from www.4wheelparts.com.

We found that the stock spring shackles on our rear springs could not be removed because the bolt half of the side plates would hit the gas tank. This isn’t a problem if you have the factory 15-gallon CJ tank, but with our 20-gallon unit it was a problem. We simply unbolted the spring hangers from the frame and lowered the end of the spring to remove the shackles and spring bushings.		As with the spring hangers, the bushings at the fixed end of the spring are easy to remove and replace. Simply slip the old ones out and push the new ones in.
The shackle end of the spring has a larger diameter bushing with a steel sleeve in it. This bushing is hard to remove. We’ve had luck with a U-joint press or an 8-inch C-clamp and a piece of tubing as seen here. Another option is to drill out the rubber surrounding the sleeve until enough has been removed to allow the sleeve to be removed. This takes some time, but works too. DO NOT use a torch to remove the sleeve. Heating the spring will weaken the spring eye, and can lead to failure.		Once the spring bushings have been replaced you can reinstall your springs. We elected to upgrade our spring hangers and spring shackles at the same time.

 

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