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I am overheating and I need it fixed yesterday


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After finally getting my truck on the road again and driving it to school and to a couple friends houses no longer than 15 minutes my truck has spewed coolant everywhere twice. I don't have actual temp readings. I am supposed to leave for the takeover tomorrow if not friday morning. I have replaced the coolant and burbed it and replaced the thermostat again because I thought mine was faulty. I am tempted to believe it is a water pump

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I say ya yank the belt off and check the pump pulley for any play. Have you replaced it recently? Did you get the right direction pump? The aftermarket sells two styles of water pumps that flows either direction. I know this as I accidentally ordered the wrong direction drive pump once and it would over heat and blow coolant everywhere real quick.

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1 hour ago, ghetdjc320 said:

What radiator are you running? What water pump? Have the engine and radiator been flushed? Has the heater core been flushed? What fans are your using? 

Stock stock and stock. Flushed everything separately ( block radiator and core)with a garden hose forcefully then ran 5 gallons of distilled water to flush out hose water then filled it up and burped it.

 

1 hour ago, eaglescout526 said:

I say ya yank the belt off and check the pump pulley for any play. Have you replaced it recently? Did you get the right direction pump? The aftermarket sells two styles of water pumps that flows either direction. I know this as I accidentally ordered the wrong direction drive pump once and it would over heat and blow coolant everywhere real quick.

no Idea if they gave me the right one I picked up a new one from napa an hour ago for an 87 4.0 Comanche. I will check if the pulley has play

 

58 minutes ago, pizzaman09 said:

Is the harmonic balancer slipping on its internal rubber ring?

no clue. why would that cause overheating?

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I’d get your temp gauge working asap. Check the part number for the water pump and make sure it’s the right one. Make sure your belt routing is correct and spinning the water pump counter clockwise. Try running it at idle and watch your temps. Check and make sure your upper radiator hose gets pressure (thermostat opening). Check your oil level. And check all your hose clamps and hoses for any leaks. One small leak and it will overheat. 
 

Now there is also a possibility you have a head gasket/head problem. But don’t go down that road yet. Possibly grab another radiator if everything else above checks out. 

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bottle and cap are mehhhhhh. my upper hose isnt getting anything. I just have a dummy light on my cluster so I don't know how to get proper temp reading. I do have a laser thermometer.

 

should be alright on oil I will double check when I have the chance. and the steam did see to be coming from my head???? or at least on the drivers side. 

 

should I go down the road of water pumper replacement. I don't think the pump leaks at all I think it does make a slight whine occasionally

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The fact that the upper rad hose isn't getting hot is a sure sign that there is no water circulation.   That COULD be the water pump, but more likely, it's a partially plugged radiator.

 

The cooling system on the MJ/XJ is just barely adequate when all the parts are in as-new condition.   Once any of them deteriorate, you can expect overheating pretty soon thereafter.

 

One other tip:  although you do not have a temperature guage, you can buy a laser infrared thermometer like this one on Amazon:

 

Laser Thermometer

 

It's pretty cheap, and can be very useful.  Just point it at the thermostat elbow, and you will get a good reading on coolant temperature.

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If you have any kind of leak it is going to overheat repeatedly no matter how many times you burp it.  When the engine cools down instead of drawing the coolant back from the expansion bottle it will just suck air in from the leak and you're back to square one.  Check all of the O rings, hose clamps etc.  Make sure there are no pin holes or leaks from radiator itself.  You may need to clean your radiator and engine bay to find them.  If you don't have a thermostat with the hole and little toggle thingy then you're not getting the air past the thermostat to be purged.  Drill a hole on the top side if there isn't one.  And better yet get the 91 thermo housing and a 3/8th npt brass plug and bleed it through there.  Much better and easier way to bleed the system. 

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2 hours ago, Jesse J said:

New water pump got in and it didn’t overheat!!! Took it for a 25 minute drive and the bottle was 211 the upper hose was 191 and the block was 157. Leaving for the takeover in 5 minutes!!!! Thanks very much for your help guys 

Those are good numbers. What did the old water pump look like?

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welp still overheating. at this point I am thinking it is a headgasket??? we will see. I'm buying a new radiator off my buddy and converting to a open?? closed?? (I can never remember) the better one. I spent saturday wiring in an O reileys temp gauge and a non ignition fan switch. If I convert and still hit 240 after 5 minutes of driving I will do a headgasket

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It’s a slippery slope. Try to pinpoint the issue before firing the parts cannon. I’d run a can of flush through the whole system again. As has been said before, these things are very easy to overheat if everything is not 100%. Before going the head gasket route, test your compression in each cylinder with all plugs removed and a full battery. If you need a radiator, just stay away from the cheap 2-3 core aluminum eBay/amazon ones. The regular parts store replacements have been decent (spectra premium, Murray etc). Otherwise it’s a big jump up in price to the next good radiator (novak, mishimoto etc). Most prefer a Stat or Mopar tstat. The open system is the newer style. Still a bit of a process to get it bled though.

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The thing I like about the open system is that I simply understand it better and therefore can troubleshoot problems easier.  Seems much more resilient in my opinion.  When I converted mine, I kept the original renix radiator (no fill port) and bought a in-line filler neck and installed it on my upper radiator hose.  Dumped my problematic pressurized tank and replaced with a junkyard XJ overfill bottle.  

 

Doing the in-line water fill neck route, I didn't have to buy a new radiator for the conversion and saved a lot of money that I didn't necessarily have at the time.  Also, I didn't have to fool with a T-stat housing/sensor swap and mod that I think is involved.  This might be a desirable option for you if you're tight on funds and your radiator is in fact still good.

 

Good luck on getting this all behind you.

 

 

    

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