Hi everyone. I have a 2000 Jeep TJ 4.0L incline 6 Sport.
So it's currently winter here in Canada and my Jeep wouldn't get up to temp. I decided it was time to investigate and on my day off I went ahead and took apart the housing for the thermostat. Low and behold, thermostat was broken. I had already bought another one and installed it plus the new gasket.
This is where I started to have issues. I don't so much work on my cat unless out of necessity since this is my first car. All I've done is basic maintenance and then I had to replace the transfer case (took me two days but it's been a year and it's still rocking ). So I thought this would be easy.
Anyways, I flushed out the radiator with some distilled water (only once because despite the heater it was cold working on the car) and then cycled some more distilled water through the engine and the heater core. I didn't do it until clean because I realized I misjudged how much water I had and ran out (and my outdoor hose is frozen so I was using distilled water and a hot water pump I have for camping.)
I emptied out the radiator and went to fill the system with coolant. It took about two of my 4L jugs before it wouldn't take anymore (including when I was running the engine to get it to pull the coolant down) so I filled the overflow reservoir, put on the radiator cap and went to take it for a drive. As I was driving my Jeep went up to temp, then kept climbing. I thought all I had to do was maybe add some more coolant but on my way back, the temp suddenly jumped up to just before the red and I turned it off. Coasted to the side of the road, waited a bit for the coolant to cool down. Added a bit more coolant and then rushed to drive it the 5 minutes home. I made it home and just as I was pulling into the garage it went just before the red again. So I turned it off. While I was stopped I also could feel the coolant bubbling like crazy in the rad.
I tried to burp out the air and all that. Anyways, here are my findings.
I've judged that the Water Pump is fine because I can feel the coolant being pumped through when I squeeze the upper radiator hose.
The thermostat seems fine because the upper radiator hose stays pretty cold until around 100 celsius (it's a 195 farenheit tstat) where it starts to warm up.
Fan works because it's mechanical and turns on when the car starts.
Now, eventually when running the Jeep the temp stays at around 110 celsius idle (which seems pretty warm for idle) and then after some revs it starts to climb.
When I was testing the engine after doing all this I let it warm up to 110, and then let it idle for about 15 minutes. Eventually I heard some boiling noises and when I checked, the coolant was boiling in the overflow tank.
I tried burping again. Car on an incline, radiator cap off, funnel in, engine on. The coolant would rise up the funnel and eventually start boiling. This confused me because I thought the coolant was supposed to go down as I burped it. When it got too much I turned the car off and let the fluid go back into the radiator. But as soon as the car was off I noticed that the upper radiator hose was completely empty.
I'm confused, I'm not sure what I did wrong and why it's not working. Any ideas or tips would be thankful before I take it to the shop tomorrow.
Thanks in advance.
So it's currently winter here in Canada and my Jeep wouldn't get up to temp. I decided it was time to investigate and on my day off I went ahead and took apart the housing for the thermostat. Low and behold, thermostat was broken. I had already bought another one and installed it plus the new gasket.
This is where I started to have issues. I don't so much work on my cat unless out of necessity since this is my first car. All I've done is basic maintenance and then I had to replace the transfer case (took me two days but it's been a year and it's still rocking ). So I thought this would be easy.
Anyways, I flushed out the radiator with some distilled water (only once because despite the heater it was cold working on the car) and then cycled some more distilled water through the engine and the heater core. I didn't do it until clean because I realized I misjudged how much water I had and ran out (and my outdoor hose is frozen so I was using distilled water and a hot water pump I have for camping.)
I emptied out the radiator and went to fill the system with coolant. It took about two of my 4L jugs before it wouldn't take anymore (including when I was running the engine to get it to pull the coolant down) so I filled the overflow reservoir, put on the radiator cap and went to take it for a drive. As I was driving my Jeep went up to temp, then kept climbing. I thought all I had to do was maybe add some more coolant but on my way back, the temp suddenly jumped up to just before the red and I turned it off. Coasted to the side of the road, waited a bit for the coolant to cool down. Added a bit more coolant and then rushed to drive it the 5 minutes home. I made it home and just as I was pulling into the garage it went just before the red again. So I turned it off. While I was stopped I also could feel the coolant bubbling like crazy in the rad.
I tried to burp out the air and all that. Anyways, here are my findings.
I've judged that the Water Pump is fine because I can feel the coolant being pumped through when I squeeze the upper radiator hose.
The thermostat seems fine because the upper radiator hose stays pretty cold until around 100 celsius (it's a 195 farenheit tstat) where it starts to warm up.
Fan works because it's mechanical and turns on when the car starts.
Now, eventually when running the Jeep the temp stays at around 110 celsius idle (which seems pretty warm for idle) and then after some revs it starts to climb.
When I was testing the engine after doing all this I let it warm up to 110, and then let it idle for about 15 minutes. Eventually I heard some boiling noises and when I checked, the coolant was boiling in the overflow tank.
I tried burping again. Car on an incline, radiator cap off, funnel in, engine on. The coolant would rise up the funnel and eventually start boiling. This confused me because I thought the coolant was supposed to go down as I burped it. When it got too much I turned the car off and let the fluid go back into the radiator. But as soon as the car was off I noticed that the upper radiator hose was completely empty.
I'm confused, I'm not sure what I did wrong and why it's not working. Any ideas or tips would be thankful before I take it to the shop tomorrow.
Thanks in advance.
