george86

I have a 1998 jeep Cherokee with roughly 265000 miles on it. I went to do a coolant flush last night. One of the steps was to disconnect the top radiator hose from the radiator and flush the system from the top before retightening everything and adding the flush chemical. Well water wouldn't flow through the top hose it would just fill up the hose and slow trickle out the lower radiator hose. Is there any ideas why this may happen. I will add this is new to me.

Orlo

Welcome back, george86. I was wondering if you got to pokin your noggin around that coolant leak you posted a few days back. Seems you've moved on to a coolant flush. Just curious about why that's your current move. Did you find the source of your leak, or is this part of your process?

From what you describe, you have a clogged radiator. But I don't have any faith in that guess because you need to fill in some blanks. Start with what led you to try this flush.

george86

Found the leak fixed it and decided because of how dirty the coolant was to do a flush.

Orlo

What was the fix? I'm hoping that it didn't involve using a stop leak product in your cooling system. Those substances are mediocre for stopping leaks, but terrific if you want to clog up your heater core and radiator....... Which you may have at the moment.

george86

Oh no I didn't use any stop leak I heard that stuff is no good. It was a leaking water pump gasket and friend helped me out.

Orlo

How did you fix the leaking water pump gasket? Did you replace it? I only ask because I'm not sure that was your problem. A gasket like that rarely fails. It's more often a water pump seal/bearing that fails and causes a leak that can allow coolant to appear to be seeping from elsewhere. Plus, if you pulled the water pump off to replace the gasket, you should have replaced the pump. It's cheap. And at 200k plus miles, not a bad idea. I suspect that your whole cooling system is long overdue for an overhaul. If you can't get water to flow through your radiator, it's shot.

Search this site for cooling system-related threads. There are some really good posts on how to deal with problems like yours. Do an hour of research before five minutes of futile wrench turning. Your repair will turn out much better.

madmanmarty

Did u remove the thermostat housing & flush the block thru there?