After a 50 mile round trip yesterday we smelled coolant. Open hood and saw a small puddle of water on top of radiator housing with smalll spot boiling out. (see pic). My question is would this be something repairable or is a replacement called for. Am new to jeeps. It's a '04 lj. Seems to be a small hairline crack about 2' long also. Any help would be appreciated.
Radiator leak
- Thread starter LOU7484
- Start date
If it were a pin hole you could screw a small sheet metal screw into it and be done, the hairline crack, not so much. New radiator time for you.
Replace it! Common issue. It could be time to replace the coolant system if it’s the original and you have over 100k miles for peace of mind.
New radiator, water pump, thermostat, and hoses while you are there... might as well drain the system once. It’s not hard or really expensive if you do the work yourself. I recently did mine this past winter. I replaced the serpentine belt as well since it had to come off to do the water pump. I want to say it cost under $500 in parts to do it. Figure double if you pay someone else to do it. I went all mopar except with upper and lower radiator hoses.
If it’s your first time working on it just lay everything out in the order you took it off and leave the belt on to loosen the fan bolt first. You need a wrench thin enough to loosen the nut behind the fan. They sell them but I used a regular wrench. Other than that it’s common hand tools really.
New radiator, water pump, thermostat, and hoses while you are there... might as well drain the system once. It’s not hard or really expensive if you do the work yourself. I recently did mine this past winter. I replaced the serpentine belt as well since it had to come off to do the water pump. I want to say it cost under $500 in parts to do it. Figure double if you pay someone else to do it. I went all mopar except with upper and lower radiator hoses.
If it’s your first time working on it just lay everything out in the order you took it off and leave the belt on to loosen the fan bolt first. You need a wrench thin enough to loosen the nut behind the fan. They sell them but I used a regular wrench. Other than that it’s common hand tools really.
Epoxy for plastic that is flexible. I mixed it with some fuzz cut from a nylon ratchet strap. Clean and scuff the area to be glued. Lay it on thick and wide. Let it cure for as long as possible before driving.
I drove my patch for a full week before the new radiator arrived. It would have survived longer if needed.
Just replaced mine for the second time in two years, same hairline crack in each of them that you have. A junk yard one will work, but consider the amount of use it may have. My junk yard $50 radiator lasted a year, luckily I found a brand new one on Facebook market place for $100.
Buy a new OEM Mopar radiator, there are 3 Part Numbers for Mopar radiators;
55037652AA: Manual Transmission
55037653AB : Auto Transmission w/Slip on style transmission line
55037653AC: Auto Transmission w/Quick Connect transmission lines
Buy a new OEM Mopar radiator, there are 3 Part Numbers for Mopar radiators;
55037652AA: Manual Transmission
55037653AB : Auto Transmission w/Slip on style transmission line
55037653AC: Auto Transmission w/Quick Connect transmission lines
Well, I expected the news would not be good. I bought the jeep with 112k on it so I expected some future repairs. Just to be safe I'm going to go with a radiator replacement, coolant flush and new hoses. Temporarily I'm going to try the JB Weld plastic radiator repair kit a buddy just told me about to try and hold off the repair for a while to get some funds together. I will have to take it to a shop as my age and some physical issues prevent me from doing anything except very minor repairs or projects. Fortunately I'm only driving locally so I'm close to a shop if it blows. Thanks to everyone for their responses.
Familiar with that 'chain'. Had to do a timing chain a few years ago. Had them do water pump at same time to save on labor cost down the road.
Just posted this, Same thing happened to me. me.
https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/how-to-fix-a-radiator-in-the-field-with-a-leatherman.22717/
https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/how-to-fix-a-radiator-in-the-field-with-a-leatherman.22717/
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