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So It Kinda Sucks...

4K views 41 replies 7 participants last post by  Sammy91683 
#1 ·
When I walked out into the parking lot at school today, there was a giant puddle under my car. I checked it out, and I drove it home (since I only live like 2 miles from the school) and it turns out that one of my radiator hoses split open and spewed coolant everywhere across under my hood (you can trace the spatter just like CSI) I just got a brand new radiator a couple months ago because the old one cracked. I got brand new hoses and a new premium thermostat now though. I'm gonna be putting them in tomorrow along with new spark plugs, plug wires, and a distributor cap and rotor. My poor jeep :/ Any good tips on the thermostat? I haven't done it before.
 
#36 ·
Doesn't matter; they both do the same job, but draining the radiator through it's valve is the slower/cleaner way of doing it. Detaching the lower hose without draining the radiator won't hurt anything, just be ready to catch the torrent of coolant.

I usually open the valve and let it drain as I remove other hoses, etc..
 
#37 ·
Ya. That's probably what I'm gonna do. What coolant ratio to you recommend I use. The coldest that it would ever possibly get here is about 15 at night. The lowest we usually get is about 19 once or twice every winter. I have a full gallon of antifreeze and about a 3.4 gallon system. All day at work yesterday and all day at school today, all I can think about is working on the jeep and getting it fixed haha.
 
#39 ·
50/50 is what's recommended, no? Someone correct me please if I'm wrong.

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but if you have a high quality thermostat, it probably has a "burp hole" in it to help keep air pockets out of the block. If you see a small hole in the diaphragm of the thermostat, near the outer rim, make sure it's installed with the hole on the TOP. it won't do any good on the bottom.
Good point, and if your thermostat doesn't have a hole in it you can drill one.
 
#38 ·
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but if you have a high quality thermostat, it probably has a "burp hole" in it to help keep air pockets out of the block. If you see a small hole in the diaphragm of the thermostat, near the outer rim, make sure it's installed with the hole on the TOP. it won't do any good on the bottom.
 
#42 ·
Ok, so I'm pretty sure that I got the good old jeep up and running again :]
-I got a brand new thermostat housing and gasket, and I sealed both sides of the gasket with water outlet sealant. I ended up having to take the belt pulley off because it was a pain to get to the lower bolt since the belt was right in the way. I also got a new lower bolt because somebody stripped the head of the old one until it was almost round.
-I got a new, fail-safe thermostat, but there wasn't a hole in the top. I broke out the drill and drilled one.
-New upper and lower hoses. The top one was swollen, warped, and I found the small hole where the coolant sprayed out of. The lower one looked like it was also ready to split open, and it was a pain to get off and on because the clamp was in such a difficult space. The hoses were still stock and my jeep is a 98. The hoses were actually older than the jeep because the manufacturing date was printed on them, and it was from October of 97.

I put everything together and filled up the system with new coolant and burped the hoses and such. I got it completely warmed up and the lower hose started leaking at the difficult clamp of course. I got under there, tightened it up, and then started the jeep back up. I took it for about a mile test-drive to get it completely warmed up and then parked it and let it idle. Only one drip that I'm very positive was a residual drip from the first time that the hose leaked. The complete test will be when I drive it to school tomorrow.
 
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