Okay...so I'm teaching myself about cars. I've scoured the internet and can't find a picture to help me and my Haynes manual is at home.

Jeep started overheating today. When I popped the hood there's some antifreeze near the battery, but not a puddle anywhere.

The reservoir looks empty. On top of the reservoir there's a little nipple that looks like SHOULD have a hose running to it. I say should because there's nothing there.

There is a hose running from just under the radiator cap along top of radiator toward battery, but it looks cut.

Should this hose go all the way to the reservoir? I don't see a way for coolant to get from reservoir to the radiator

Any thoughts would be great. And again..I'm teaching myself so be gentle.

Yes, that hose should extend to the reservoir. Just go the parts store and show them what you need. They may suggest soft vacuum line cut to length. That's fine. As coolant heats up it expands and ends up in the coolant reservoir. When you turn off the engine and things start to cool, it is sucked back in. The coolant reservoir should never be filled to the top when the engine is cold because it will overflow when it warms up.

Thanks for the info. I put a little coolant into radiator and got to parts store for new hose and then home. I'm gonna let it sit to cool off and also let it get cooler outside.

Question...is there a rule of thumb about how much coolant I should put into reservoir? It is bone dry. I bought the Jeep in October 2013 and I wonder why this hasn't been a problem til now. Oh well..hopefully this caused the overheating to go away.

The reservoir should be marked Hot Level & Cold Level or something like that. Might have to clean it off to read it.

About half full hot should work.

When you say that it was over heating, How hot did it get? You have to be real careful with your 2000. Because late 99-01 has a 0331 head on it and are known to crack very easy when over heated. If it got real hot make sure to open the oil fill cap and with a strong flashlight and the engine at normal operating temp look and see if you can see a crack or drops of antifreeze on the top of the head. Also check your oil to check for any milky looking oil. Hopefully you caught it in time and it didn't get to hot. Let us know what you find.

The '00 bottle has the hot and cold marks on the engine side of the bottle. It also has an indented area on one of those lines to make it easier to see when it's dirty.

Let me be more clear. It was running fine and the needle then jumped to the first red line, check engine light dinged, and I immediately slowed down. It went back to normal and then pegged hard and I pulled over to let it cool down. Once it was cool to the touch I cranked it back up and drove it to the parts store with no issue. That's when I made first post about hose being cut and reservoir being dry.

At parts store (after it was cool) I open radiator cap and could see some wetness, but not the "puddle" like cars show. I added a little coolant to drive it home. While driving home it stayed between 210 and the next line.

It has finally cooled off and I'm going to go out now and fill reservoir and replace the hose.

I should say it never stayed hot. It pegged, dropped off, etc. from reading I also feel maybe it's a bad tstat. Parts store had one for $14, but I'd prefer NAPA or Mopar part tomorrow.

When the motor is COLD, coolant level in the radiator should be full to the top and, as said, the bottle should be about 1/2 full (motor cold). A properly functioning radiator cap is absolutely critical in your type of coolant recovery system.....put a new one on.

One thing u need to teach yourself regarding learning about old cars is........u can't open the hood too frequently for a quick look around.

If you've just connected the hose and topped off the radiator, it may suck up to a quart down out of the coolant reservoir on the next heat/cool cycle. For this reason, fill it to the "SAFE" mark on the coolant reservoir. It should be between ADD and SAFE when the engine is at normal operating temperature which is the middle of the gauge, 210F. That's what the book says, but I think most just fill it to the ADD or SAFE mark when its cold.

.......and did I mention check both rad and bottle frequently, motor COLD?