willd

Hey guys - quick update!

Sold my Toyota crawler so I was able to throw a little money at this thing. So yesterday I got ready for a big day of working on the Cherokee.

I installed new Alpine SP510 speakers front and rear (the old ones were JVC's from 2002) and man did that make a difference! And while that is nice, what I did afterwards was even better.

I FINALLY did the closed to open conversion on the cooling system. I did not go the route of the inline radiator cap and instead purchased the NR2802 radiator from NAPA. It's actually really well made and everything was plug and play. The old closed system was leaking coolant pretty badly so it was a good thing to finally get around to doing this.

Here's a pic of everything I got to do the conversion




So started by removing the radiator cover and the fan. Of course my radiator hoses did not want to come off so I had to cut them off (which made a GIANT mess of the garage - so disregard the Kitty litter below)



Then was able to pull the radiator out and get to work doing the thermostat!



I was originally going to do the water pump and fan clutch as well, but I saw that they were already replaced at some point recently.


Drilled a hole through the thermostat to help push any air through.

Also threw on a new serpentine belt since I was in there.

The rest of it went pretty well. I didn't document it as much but after this I basically swapped over everything from the old radiator to the new one (tranny line quick disconnect, radiator mounts and temp sender) and then installed it and the new hoses. Then the radiator cover, and lastly the airbox. Then I routed the overflow line to the coolant bottle and called it a night. I couldn't finish because I did not get the 3/4 to 5/8 heater hose adapters and I'm not interested in reversing the flow, but I'm going to get those today and fill her up!

Here's the before:



Here's the after:



I'll take another picture when it's finally done but you all get the idea!

willd

And here's the finished product! Ended up not getting the 3/4 to 5/8 adapters after all. I just went ahead and lubed up the 3/4 fittings with some dish soap and slipped them on! So far so good - no leaks.



On top of that my overheating problem is fixed! Sitting at a stop light for 3 minutes would have the temperature rising to ~240+. I let it idle in my driveway for 10 minutes and it didn't get a hair over 210!