I think your best and easiest bet is to install an electric booster fan, and you don't need to get fancy shmancy about it, just rig it to a toggle switch and flip it on only when you need it. If there isn't room for it with the clutch fan, you can either mount it as a pusher in front of the A/C condensor or make it thermo controlled as a main cooling fan. The one from a WJ would be perfect, although they are usually the first to disappear from the junkyard.

 

A thermostat will NOT cause an engine to overheat unless it is defective....period. The purpose of the thermostat is to get engine up to optimal operating temperature quickly. Has nothing to do with cooling. Air transfer through radiator is the cooling component.

 

Is there an echo in here? Hahaha just kidding. It's nice to have someone back me up.

 

I just find it funny people are use to modern cars and drive something like a jeep and think 200 degrees is over heating.With a old cast iron engine 200 degrees its just starting to get warm and its happy running at that temp.

 

Chevy small blocks could get up to 240 before you'd have to start worrying about them. Turning the heater on high made you sweat, but the temp went down. Many times with a load in my truck, this is exactly what happened.

 

Dave and back then most only had idiot lights no gauges and by the time the light came on you was already screwed.You learned to listen to the car if its acting funny you know something is wrong.

 

Yeah, the Impala, Caprice and Chevell only had idiot lights. My Camaro and my trucks had gauges. The good part about Jeeps is the "Check gauges" light for idiots!

 

Yes, you can. It's a bad idea, but it can be done.

Your engine is designed to run at a certain temperature. Cooler is not better.


No. That's not how it works.

The thermostat controls at what temperature the coolant begins to flow. It is there to prevent coolant flow until your engine gets up to operating temperature. It does not really regulate the top temperature. That is regulated by a balance between how fast you are generating heat and how fast your cooling system is removing it. Ideally, your cooling system can remove heat faster than your engine can generate it even under adverse conditions, so the thermostat DOES do some regulation of top temperature, by closing down a bit to maintain the correct temperature. If you go above that temperature, it's wide open, so it's not doing anything.

If your cooling system can't keep up with the heat load, something is wrong. A lower opening temperature won't fix that. It will be wide open all the time, but your cooling system still will have the problem that prevents it from keeping up with the heat load.

Fix what's wrong.

You have a bad water pump or clogged radiator or something else that is making your engine run too hot (if it really IS running too hot).

Fix what's wrong instead of looking for magic "fixes".

 

Blue Ridge Mark, you are right. I think this thread has run it's course and nothing more will help if this guy isn't willing to see the light.

There is one thing I just thought of. If you're buying straight antifreeze and mixing it with well water with a high mineral content, you can crap up a radiator very quickly! My well water is jokingly called "liquid limestone" by people in my area and after finding my radiators half plugged with white junk, I use distilled or at least filtered drinking water. I've had to use CLR to clean one of my truck's radiators. After it was clean, I started using premixed coolant. Because of the design of jeep radiators, you can't actually see the condition of the cores.

Clean the entire cooling system, put in a 195* thermostat, and go for broke.

 

In my 95 ZJ 4.0 I'm running a 180 degree t-stat, two row all aluminum radiator, and a Ford Taurus fan assembly with a Hayden fan control. The engine temp goes down at stop lights and runs at about 200 degrees on flat land, it does go up to almost 220 while going up steep grades. Running 32" tires with 3.55 gears aren't helping in the hills, but it's not overheating either.

 

195 is the OEM for this . That means it Starts to Open at 195. It will run around 210 ish give or take.
Assuming you use a real t stat, not an aftermarket with the so called air bleeder hole, which runs too cold.
OBDII needs to see 200 to go into closed loop per the nys DMV.

 

I'm on a well. I can relate. That's why they make the pre-mix.