I'm currently rebuilding an 4L Autotrans, 89 Jeep Cherokee.

The previous owner pretty much ran the truck into the ground but truck is slowly coming back to life.

My current project is the cooling system. It wasn't taken care of and there is brown gunk both in the engine compartment and in the coolant bottle. I've been leaking fluid and finally found a pinhole leak in the radiator. When the engine heats up it shoots out in a solid stream.

I've decided to replace as much of the cooling system as possible. My parts list thus far is:

1) New thermostat
2) Upper and lower radiator houses
3) Fan and Shroud
4) Radiator Isolators
5) Water Pump
6) Coolant Bottle

Is this over kill if not is there anything else I should replace while I have it torn apart?

Also, I have a dumb temp gauge in the console. It isn't working. When I turn the ignition I don't get a red light like I do with the other gauges. I'd like to replace it with a stock gauge with actual numbers, does anyone have a part number. I'm assuming that the coolant temp sending unit is bad so that will be getting replaced as well.

I haven't replaced a cooling system on a jeep before but it looks pretty straight forward. Does anyone have a link to a writeup on it?

 

Since you are already doing most of the work for it you should spend the extra 100 bucks for a new rad and swap it to an open cooling system.

 

Whoops, forgot to put the radiator on there...

Is there a write up anywhere on converting to an open system? I keep finding links to busted articles.

 

I support that suggestion 100%. Get rid of the crazy closed cooling system with the silly bottle by the firewall. It won't cost anymore than what you are doing and will be a way better cooling system.I did it on my sister's 89 and on my 90.
clint

 

Definitely going to move to an open cooling system.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around the conversion. I have a feeling it is a lot easier than I think it is.

I live in Hawaii and don't need route in the heater core. So is this as simple as dropping in a radiator with a filler and swapping out the pressure bottle?