Coolant appitite.....:(

[MrMopar22]

The poor Liberty has developed a veracious appitite for coolant in the last couple of months. I have lived with it for a while periodically checking to maintain correct levels, but.......it has come to the point where it's using 1/4-1/2 gallon a week. I'm going to pull it apart in the next week or so. Does the 3.7 have head or head gasket issues? It's got 165K on the original engine and it doesn't appear to ever been apart. I'm REALLY hoping that it will just be a bad gasket, but I'm usually not that lucky.

Is there anything else I should change while I'm in there? Someone told me that they are prone to timing chain failures and if it hasn't been replaced yet, I'm running on borrowed time. Bearings, rings, oil pump?

 

[JeepJeepster]

I've yet to hear of a head gasket going yet but that doesn't mean one hasn't. Have you checked the radiator completely? They're known for cracking the plastic ends.

 

[first&lastKJ]

Same problem with our 02. It was the radiator.

 

[AVR2]

We are on our third rad in our KJ, which we bought new in 2005. The first one failed catastrophically and just dumped all the coolant, the second one developed a more controlled leak.

 

[yellocoyote]

Same here too.

 

[badkittystt]

I was dealing with that with Mr. Darcy for a while. Turned out there was the tiniest little crack in the radiator, took a few weeks to find it but a quick jb weld and it's holding like a champ.


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[GTF]

Are you seeing any signs of water in your oil on your dipstick? If you're losing that much coolant, I would expect that some of it would have to be getting into the oil if your head gasket failed. I'm with the others, check the radiator.

I had the radiator problem on mine as well. Coolant was dripping down where the plastic end joins with the aluminum part of the rad. After hearing about all the problems people had with radiators, I just bought one of the cheap Chinese ones off of ebay and installed it last summer. Haven't had any problems with it since... hopefully it will stay that way.