Difficultly diagnosing Electrical/Belt Accessories problems on '89 Comanche with 4.0L and 5speed manual 189k Miles

[EagleScout]

Bought the Comanche day before Thanksgiving, everything seemed fine mechanically, had to replace the battery when I bought it and replaced the starter and battery cables soon after.

Also bought and installed set of all new vacuum hoses

 

Drove around with no real issues repairs seemed minor

 

Ran fine until Christmas Day it started over heating going down the interstate

I pull over and come to a stop. hear a loud bang from under the hood and the truck completely shut off Radiator was profusely leaking, But I didn't see any other damage anf towed it home. 

 

Replace the radiator. Jttt the vehicle will now overheat after 15 minutes of driving, Replace the thermostat and gasket mlm

Still overheating and still hear a faint squeak from the engine.

Drained the entire coolant system

Replaced the water pump, gasket and the idler pulley also exchange the battery out atound this 

 

There's no coolant flowing in to the radiator(i believe the idea here is to "burp " the system by running air bubbles out of the open cap of the coolant tank

Now it will crank, but won't start

the crank sounds smooth not rough.

 

I have no AC or heat whatsoever haven't since I bought it

 

Is it possible I've misaligned a pulley?

Is it the Alternator? The AC compressor? 

 

I need to get it running asap so I can drive it to my new job but I need to keep it as cheap as possible as ive been unemployed for months and absolutely cannot afford a mechanic at least until I get my first and second checks in 

 

I really appreciate any help and again I'll stress I bought this to learn how to work on my own vehicles but have no fundamental understanding of the mechanics

 

Thank you !

-eaglescout

 

[EagleScout]

[88mancheman]

Did you install the serpentine belt correctly?

[88mancheman]

Here is a diagram to confirm your serpentine belt configuration


(Note the idler above the alternator in this diagram is the AC unit on AC equipped 4.0’s)
Here is a dirty picture of mine for comparison

[EagleScout]

Yessir 

[88mancheman]

Does the fan clutch have resistance when trying to spin the mechanical fan? A bad fan clutch could cause some overheating issues, as for the not starting, I would check to make sure 100% no wires are disconnected before going onto the next step

turn the key on and off 2-3 times and then leave the key in the on/running position and check to see if fuel pressure is building/holding in the fuel rail ontop of the intake manifold here :


If your getting fuel to the fuel rails then that is 1/3 things the engine needs to run and air is everywhere around it so that is 2/3 things, I would then start checking spark by pulling 1 of the spark plugs putting it back inside the spark plug boot and putting the spark plug against the block of the engine and have someone crank the engine and see if you see spark on the spark plug if so then that’s 3/3 things the engine needs to run and hopefully enough basic info someone with more knowledge of the Renix system can help out :)