87 K5 Build...Hmmm, whats that Ryoken up to? stay tuned...

[73k5blazer]

Looking nice. Keep it up!

 

[ryoken]

Here's my assessment of Summit's Mojave heater....

First off, no install pics just yet.. Not much to see, it's a heater up under a dash.. Not to mention it reveals some secret breaker panel stuff I have going on... I promise pics later tho..

After using it for a week, I'm impressed...

I haven't vented the one side up to the defrost yet, so this is with both pointing down at the tranny hump..

On the old "hold your hand in front of the duct, see how hot it is scale", I'd say it's just a tad behind a stock setup, maybe... It blows damn hot, but the core is a bit smaller than a stock, so I'm thinking it's a couple degrees cooler, I may be wrong.. 2 thumbs up!

Maybe at some point I can do a more thorough comparison on this stuff, using Tom's truck for a stock comparison..

But the interesting thing about this heater is, the fan.. It comes with a decent 4 position, rotary switch, but I'm probably gonna ditch it and use my Conturas..

On the low setting, I'd say it blows about the same as a medium stocker. Good amount of airflow.. this is where I leave it driving around..

The medium setting blows about as hard as a high setting on most cars.. Huffing some air.. This is what I've been using when warming up the truck...

The high setting? Goes to 11.. I'm mean really.. Thats an understatement.. The high setting seriously cranks out some air.. Little noisy at that point too..

I couldn't drive around with it like that.. It'd be blowing up all kinds of dust off the floor.. Tho I think I may put it on that for the morning warmup and see how hot I can get it..

I may do this in every vehicle I build from now on.. For real.. The damn thing's the size of a small shoebox, very fittable, and the fact it allows me to clean up, free up a firewall on any application, infreakinvaluable.. Well worth the $140..

The only thing I thought of was, if replacement cores are available.. I need to check into that...

The truck performed awesome this week... The battery tray is rock solid and I'm really digging my Contura switches... Hopefully I'll have some progress after the weekend, with pics...

 

[mikey_d05]

Awesome, I want to put one of those in my buggy for snow runs and it's good to know that it cranks out some heat. With no enclosure I'm sure gonna need it.

 

[mrk5]

I'll bet it uses some heater core application for a factory vehicle. If not, would it really be that hard for a good radiator shop to replace? Although that may be pricey.

 

[ryoken]

yeah, I'm sure if I went down to my radiator shop, they could just match it up to something in their catalog dimensionally... Heck, at that point I'd probably just have em repair the bad one...

 

[blazinzuk]

All I have to say is wow, I think I do some pretty cool stuff and then bam Ryoken does something awesomer! Good job bro.

Thanks for the review on the heater. Mabey I will just do that instead of messing with the mess I have now. We shall see.

 

[ryoken]

Thanks for the review on the heater. .

Hey, thank you for the props...

I try not to be constrained by conventional thinking and engineering.. Sometimes it puts me in labor-intensive projects, but doing the work is the fun part. finding the cash for materials and toys is usually the biggest issue...

Can't wait to actually get to my suspension.. Been patient and waiting a long time for that... I musta really have developed some patience in my old age, if I was in my 20's, I woulda ran out and bought a cheap lift kit right off the bat..

 

[cbbr]

True, but because of that you have learned that its actually cheaper to just be patient and do it right the first time.

 

[BUDDY]

I installed the same type of heater in my TJ, (because if you didn't know the heaters in TJ's suck ), & I love it!! I have a soft top jeep that I run around in all the time, & within minutes I have to turn in down. Remember, I live in the frozen tundra of Buffalo. I need to do a little better job of configuring it, because the defrost hose doesn't work like I want it to, but all in all, it's pretty flippin nice. Plus I don't have to worry about it crappin' out on me beacuse it's simple & robust. A little overkill, never killed anybody. Wait, maybe I mis-spoke there, you know what I mean.

I posted this about a year ago on jeepforum because every week over there it's the same thing, "Oh I'm cold, Oh the heater only works on high, Oh the defroster isn't working, blah, blah, blah" This was one of my responses -

My blower motor just went on me as well. I started looking for prices, and just got ticked off.

I work for Goodyear part-time, so I can get some pretty good prices for parts. The cheapest I found the blower motor for was 135.00 at Autozone, and it was a special order part. By the way, it gets pretty cold here in Buffalo.

The price of the blower motor made me start looking for other blower motor applications that would work in a TJ. Like the blazer one into a CJ or YJ. No dice. I just couldn't bring myself to "fixing" the o.e. terrible system just to have another thing go wrong in 3 mos, or 6 mos, or a year, or all three. The entire system is problematic. If it's not the resistor, it's the relay. If it's not the relay, it's the switch. Or the resistor caused the switch to go, and/or burned the wiring harness. Then it's probably the blower motor, if all of those things get fixed, blah, blah, blah.

Not to even mention the issue you'll have if the heater core goes.

My solution - tear out the entire heater system. Box, switch, motor, & all, & put in a heatercraft boat heater. I just got the heater box out last night, so now I'm going to figure out a way to get this little box up under the dash.

Let me tell you, there is a LOT of space behind the dash now. I'll probably try to figure out how to get more storage up under there.

I'll have about 200.00 into the whole system by the time it's all said & done & have a heat/defrost system that is puts out 28000 btu's of warmth into my TJ.

That's about the same as I'd have spent on just the blower motor, (which was the last straw BTW), not to mention the resistor/switch/core/wiring that could have gone on me at anytime, & it's a much more robust, simple system which is about 1/3 the size of the factory system, and puts out 4X as much heat!!

(Just a sec, gotta catch my breath.


long sentence!)

Anyways, it's just a win-win situation for me. The disadvantage is that there is no selection to where you want the air to go. I'll set mine up to blow through the defroster & floor ducts if it's on. Fine by me, that's the only place I use it anyways. I am confident that this upgrade will crank out the heat, and I'll never have to mess with it again.

BTW you can get the heater & accessories from JCWhitney, or at any BoatUS. so parts for repair shouldn't be hard to get, should you need them.

I got mine from complete off road I got the idea from here. The internet & google are wonderful things!!

Later,
Buddy

Anyways, HTH if anybody else is considering it. I would definitely recommend it.

Later,
Buddy

 

[ryoken]

I installed the same type of heater in my TJ, (because if you didn't know the heaters in TJ's suck ), & I love it!! I have a soft top jeep that I run around in all the time, & within minutes I have to turn in down. Remember, I live in the frozen tundra of Buffalo. I need to do a little better job of configuring it, because the defrost hose doesn't work like I want it to, but all in all, it's pretty flippin nice. Plus I don't have to worry about it crappin' out on me beacuse it's simple & robust. A little overkill, never killed anybody. Wait, maybe I mis-spoke there, you know what I mean.

Anyways, HTH if anybody else is considering it. I would definitely recommend it.

Later,
Buddy

Cool... Thanks for confirming my initial impressions.....

I hadn't read any reviews and kinda just went for it... Thinking it was a good call...

 

[ryoken]

Dual volt gauges.... mmmmmmm, sexy....

 

[mikey_d05]

Awesome man. As a side note, I hooked my mojave heater up to a battery so see how much air it moved. I hit the low setting first and it was like med-hi on a normal fan, I hit the high setting next and holy hell! I'm gonna have no sides and no windshield and it oughta keep my feet toasty warm!

 

[ryoken]

oh yeah, it definitely huffs some air... I've been pleased with it...

 

[73k5blazer]

Niiiiiice.

 

[jekquistk5]

Nice work!! I plan on doing some of the mods you have done mine someday.

 

[ryoken]

here's a partial diagram... I'm in the process of adding the other systems, lights, fans, etc....

hopefully everyone can read it.. Any questions, just holla...

 

[Ned Kelly]

Know of any vehicles that come with bird cage heater fans that have that side style mount (not like a GM style on our trucks)? I'm thinking I could make something similar up, and bird cage fans blow better than a conventional fan blade.

 

[Uncle Fester]

I think FORD vans had what you are thinkin of, my 84 is a side mount squirl cage fan.....some mount in engine bay, some under the dash

 

[Ned Kelly]

Thanks Uncle Fester. I'll check out some Ford vans next time I'm at the wreckers.

 

[mini_mull]

What happended to using the ACR or Battery Mate? (BTW, I love your attention to detail in everything you do, I learn a lot from all your posts.)