Hi everybody.Ive searched for this topic and can only find awnsers for earlier model Jeeps with 2 fans. I bought my 2003 WJ back in May and other than the foggy headlights everything was great. Then about 2 weeks after I got it, I was driving it a little hard and it overheated, the point of the gauge pegging the needle and the check gauges light coming on and the overflow tank boiling over. Let it cool down, drove it home and changed the theromstat to a 160 duralast from auto zone, everything was cool again, literally. Well, check engine light came on becuase the 160tstat threw the 1281 code, no biggie, it ws running alot cooler so I left it alone. About 4 weeks ago my wife and I were out running errands on a hot day and we had the AC on and i left it idle while I ran inside a store for about 10 minutes and came out and it just started to boil over. Again I replaced the Tstat with a failsafe 190 and it hasnt overheated again yet and I also replaced the fan relay, which someone else already replaced too because the access hole was already cut out.but i get really worried when it goes above 210 when driving for a period of time and stopping at red lights and sitting in traffic. Very worried to take it on long trips, and I also want to do some trail riding too but am too nervous im going to get stuck in the wooods somewhere. Any idead on what else I should look into next would be great. Water pump and radiator are in my budget so I guess it couldnt hurt to rplace them, right?

 

You said you replaced the fan relay.Did you check to make sure the fan is working?If your fan is working rite it could be a water pump or a clogging radiator.

 

Yeah I replaced the the fan relay and let the Jeep warm up and seen the fan kick on when it held at 190. When I did the first t-stat my brother and I flushed the engine for 20 minutes, cleaned all sorts of crap out, fluid was merky browninsh color. Fluid level doesnt hasnt changed since i did last tstat. I should have noticed this before I bought it but I remember seeing the area right under the overflow bottle was yellowish drip splatters that ran down the chassis, Im pretty sure the Jeep has been having this problem for a while. One of the reasons it leads me to belive it might be the water pump and/or radiator, high labor costs to replace them and nobody wanted to pay the $. Btw, just turned 73k on the odometer, not bad for an '03 I thought.