I bought a 1995 Cherokee Country from a familiy a couple weekends ago. it runs great, however I noticed that it likes to run hotter than I am accustomed to in a vehicle. This past Thursday, I drove over to a friends house and it seemed to overheat and puke rusty brown/sludgy **** on his driveway that once was antifreeze. The previous owners had replaced the radiator and water pump in the last year, they gave me the receipts along with all the receipts for everything they did in the last 20 years (GOLD MINE!!!). I noticed they were not to great about flushing out the radiator.....at least on paper, but they may have just done that themselves. Anyway, this morning I went to drain the radiator, and hardly any of the "antifreeze" came out. So I let it sit for a couple hours draining while I went off and had coffee and donuts. When I went to fill it back up with water/prestone super flush, It took the bottle of super flush, but then I was only able to squeeze in a gallon of water along with running the engine (to get water pump to suck it in), and burping the air out of the system by squeezing the radiator hose (my driveway is at an incline). I ran the engine, ran some erands with no overheating issues...but I also ran the heater just to get fluid through the system. My plan is to take out the thermostat next weekend (after running the few miles back and forth to work all week), and give the system a good flush...hoping my radiator will spit out more of that crap. Am I on the right track?

 

I would back flush the heater core at the same time, and if you want back flush the radiator as well.

If the rad looks aftermarket it might be fine, but if it (and the water pump) look stock I would change them out for peace of mind

 

That's part of the plan also next weekend. I am going to take out/replace the thermostat, put the hose back on, then flush out the block, the heater core, and the radiator. I figured the flush chemical will hopefully loosen the crap that's built up or put in (stop leak) in the system. Then I can move on to diagnosing any "hidden" issues that may ensue.

 

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