vegasche13

So I've had the XJ since December and never had a problem. I'm driving home from work yesterday and I start to smell coolant. I look at the temp gauge and it's at the last line before red. I continued driving and the gauge dropped a little(but still way passed the normal 210). I get home, pop the hood and coolant starts spewing from the reservoir tank. Any ideas what this might be? bad rad? water pump? Thanks

tiwvr1

check bottem passanger side of radiator to see if it is corroded. got two of these in two days at work. Other then that I would say thermostat or radiator cap

shintastrife

i dont say do this but i dont run at thermostat in any of my cars. they norm go bad before any thing else. when you do that i would all so pull the bottom hose on you rad and see if there is any kind of run on the fens. if there is i would replace it.

just remember one thing its not all ways a good thing to run you car when it runs 30o passed op temp. take your belt off and twist the water pump if it moves freely then it should be ok.

its like a nitro car if you run the motors on the nitro cars to hot the block expanse to much and you lose power.

vegasche13

IDK if this matters but when I got on the freeway this morning the temp went back to normal. But in stop and go traffic it overheats again.

duncan0668

could be the fan clutch, sounds like its getting plenty of air flow at speed and none sitting or driving slow.

keith two tone cherokee

make sure your electric fan is coming on. it should come on at about 215-220 thats what was wrong with mine it was fine driving but would heat up sitting

1991Jeep_Man

I don't think it would be the fan clutch. If it's cooling down going down the freeway, then the fan is doin its job. However, if you're MOVING through the city, lets say the engine is always at 1500 rpm at least, and it still heats up and makes it to the line before the red, then its more likely your electric fan thats fried. Check the relay running to your e-fan to make sure it's cutting on at around 217*F. Hope this helps.

ReverendOD

This usually isnt a good thing, if you dont run a tstat you should itleast run a restrictor plate in there. Nothing to slow the coolant flow will give you false temp readings, the collant may be cool but its not sitting int he block long enough to actually do its job and absorb the heat from the cylinderwalls.

If you do not run a t-stat I would itleast take a t-stat and gut the center so you still provide some flow restriction to the cooling system.

On that note i would say swap the tstat with a good piece from Jeep or one from Stant. Its very quick and easy job on the XJ. T-stats are not a long service life piece, we usually change them and flush the cooling system every 2-3 years or 30,000 - 50,000 miles and only fill with coolant and distilled water.

swells

does yours have the closed system still. if so convert to an open system it fixed my overheat problems.