I own a 2000 6 cylinder, 4 wheel drive, automatic Cherokee. The radiator has been replace about 8 times. It always fails on the passenger side.
The alignment of the radiator has been verified. The pressure cap has been changed and different pressures tried.
My mechanic, a former jeep mechanic now in business for himself has never encountered a jeep that does this and we are both out of ideas.

Any one have an idea?

 

Your head gasket may be blown, or the head cracked. search 0331 head

 

Which radiators are you buying? It's quite odd that it'd fail multiple times in a row like that.

Have you tried a quality radiator?

When it fails is it just leaking or does that side explode?

 

x2.

 

The head gasket is sound and the head wa recently replaced and is also sound. The problem is the radiators leak from the passenger side.
We have tried standard replacement radiators and the an all aluminum off-road heavy duty unit, same result--the heavy duty unit took longer to fail

 

Where the radiator keeps failing is part of the core support touching it or something?We really need pictures of you can take them.Kinda sounds to me the core support is bent and rubbing on the radiator tell it rubs a hole in it over time.

 

I could see that happening but I can't think of any other issue that'd cause repeated failure. Very strange.

 

What does this mean? I didn't know there was a specification.
Are the engine mounts good?
If it leaks at the tank it's being crushed or rubbed. If it leaks at the core the fan clutch is hitting it.

 

Einstein's definition of insanity.........doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

8 failed radiators.....really?

 

Motor mounts allowing the engine to shift forward and causing something to hit it

 

I can't believe you put 8 radiators in it..

 

I'd like to know what's causing this myself.

I had three fail in a period of about four years. I was buying the cheap garbage radiators you find at AutoZone and Advance Auto. Mine were cracking on the driver's side. The original stock radiator had lasted several years, until I hit a road gator slung up by a truck. Then I started this nonsense of replacing garbage radiators every few years, culminating in that run where they didn't last more than a year each.

When I was trying to find out what was going on, I found lots of threads on this and other forums where people were saying you should just buy the cheap crap radiators and treat them as expendables, replacing them as necessary. So while it might be unusual to go through eight radiators, it's not unusual for people to have multiple failures.

Personally, when I did my stroker swap, I also swapped in a CSF all aluminum radiator. I'm hoping it will last a while longer. Even as cheap as the garbage radiators are, having to replace them as a result of poor build quality offends me.

 

Odd that you've had experience. Over the last 12 years I've been dealing with XJ's I've purchased about 8 or 9 of those el'cheapo parts store radiators and never had a single one of them fail.

I must have good luck.

 

Sorry but this makes absolutely no sense. You either need to do a complete postmortem on the failed radiator and fix the root cause or next time buy a dozen to save a few bucks in the long run...

 

I haven't replaced 8 radiators total in all the vehicles I have ever owned. I've owned some. Never more than once for the same vehicle.