after driving a bit (18 miles from work to home, and at 210ish degrees) I opened my hood, propped it up then turned off the engine. I quickly looked at the fan and saw it was still spinning quite freely. my guess about 10+ revolutions....does this mean my fan clutch is bad?

 

No.

 

If it's freewheeling it's shot. Shouldn't get more than 3/4 to 1 revolution when it's hot.

 

Say What ....Replace it ...

 

Just me but on Cherokees I all most always replace water pump, thermostat, both upper and lower hose serpent belt and sometimes radiator ...price about $190-$210. Also put water slick in radiator . I think the fan clutch is fine from what you describe. If Cherokees as a whole have a weakness its cooling system.

 

I'm getting good at it. This is why some people convert to electric fans.

 

Exactly. Cheap and easy to replace. Do it before you overheat the engine when stuck in traffic.

 

Water pump, thermostat, hoses, radiator are all new. PO replaced those and I have the paper work he saved from having work done to it.

 

Replace the fan clutch or your going to be adding a valve job to list after the blown head gasket from over heating...

 

It's impossible to draw a conclusion from the scenario in the OPs post. I have yet to see a fan clutch lock up solid, it's cheap enough replace it if you want. Things can get out of hand when one goes looking for problems that don't exist.

 

Spinning 10 revolution when hot pretty much says its no Buenos

 

I saw just the clutch in the $60 range. I went for the junkyard Ford Contour electric fan instead.

 

$60 for a fan clutch? Wow! I did the ZJ fan clutch upgrade on mine a while back. It was @ $35 for it. Only like $2 more than a stock XJ fan clutch at AZ.

 

I replaced it, 35 bucks, 20 minutes.

on the old one I saw a gummy substance on the coil...I doubt that's normal.

most of my driving is highway, then to my house is 40 mph, house right right off the road, only time the engine would start to heat up was in traffic, low speed or stop lights.

 

My ZJ 4.0 fan clutch at OReilly's is $59.99. $35 I might have done. $60 was not the price I expected to hear.