I have a 1999 Cherokee Sport that has been losing coolant recently. I've localized it to the connection off the radiator cap opening to the overflow hose leading to the overflow reservoir. Removing the hose from the top of the radiator shows that the piece off the radiator that the overflow hose fits on to is broken, so the hose can partially make a connection but not very tight - when any pressure builds up the leak comes from this broken connection. The problem is that the piece that's broken is fixed on the radiator so that there is no realistic way of replacing this piece without replacing the whole radiator. Has anyone else experienced this and is there anyway around this without replacing the radiator?

Thanks for any advice in advance.

 

my best guess would be some jb weld or melt the plastic with a soldering iron

 

I was thinking something similar to the JP Weld - does that hold up to the heat of the coolant coming out of the radiator? thanks for the tip

 

is it a plastic neck on the 99 if it is you can drill and tap to 1/8 NP thread
in screw in a nipple from the hard ware store

if if its metal go to a radiator shop

 

x2. Its probably plastic and I have done what's recommended above. It held up really well with some teflon tape on the threads of the nipple.

 

is this something that most neighborhood hardware stores would carry? what should the diameter of the new nipple be? did you pad it out so that the old hose would fit tightly on the new smaller nipple? thanks again for the ideas - anything to avoid replacing the radiator.

 

You should be able to find a nipple and tap at a hardware store or autoparts store in your area. You want to find a nipple that is 1/8 NPT where it will screw into the filler neck. The nipple part you will want to get it as close to the inside diameter of the overflow hose as possible.

 

Epoxy will be a temporary fix.

I would much rather fix it once and not need to worry about being stranded who-knows-where.

The only long-term fix is a new radiator... new aluminum-cored rads can be bought for $120 or less.

 

I ran the nipple fix on mine for over a year. The only reason I'm not still running it like that is because that heep got written off. Epoxy would probably work as well if you use the right stuff but I not sure if it would be as solid

 

alright then, I'm going to take the middle road and do the tapping and new nipple fix rather than the epoxy or the new rad. one more thing though - the new nipple will have a smaller inner diameter. This will still accomodate the amount of coolant that needs to pass through in a given time?

 

The nipple I used on mine was considerably smaller but I never had a problem with it

 

oh and one more thing - what does NPT mean in the spec for the new nipple?

 

X2

 

pipe thread.

 

thanks!

alright I'll stop with all the questions - thanks VERY MUCH to you all for your kind advice. Really appreciated. gonna try this tomorrow.