profdlp
Circling The Drain
Well, sort of done but not quite.
The coolant reservoir I bought is the wrong one. It is for a closed system and my Jeep has the open system they switched to late in the KJ run. I have run into this before, most notably with my KK PCV valve. I will return it and try again. I think I can replace that without having to drain the whole dratted mess again.
Speaking of draining, I got very little coolant out. The radiator petcock dribbled away for a good long time. (Several hours, while I was fiddling with all the other stuff.) I also replaced the hoses and thermostat, which one would think would allow everything to drain really well. Even so, I got only a gallon or so out. So, there is either roughly two gallons still in there or my coolant had been leaking far more than I thought. I first noticed the leak while it was parked in my garage and if I had to guess the amount that leaked there I would put that at about a quart. The little bit that missed the bucket while draining it today was on a concrete driveway and amounted to practically nothing. So, where is the rest? Dripped out all over town? Or still stuck in the system somehow? My driving these days is mostly three miles each way to the gym and four miles each way to church, barely enough time to get the thing up to normal operating temperature.
The last time I did this I recall having trouble getting the system filled. In fact, I remember coming here and one of the old-timers (I think it was TJKJ) suggested I pop one end of the lower hose and pour some coolant directly into that, which did the trick. The weird thing is that I could still see fluid when I looked in the radiator cap hole - it was like it never actually drained.
I did start the Jeep for about ten seconds and it fired right up. I did not want to let it run longer than that to find out if it was going to overheat. I have an add-on for my Garmin called the Garmin Mechanic which plugs directly into the ODBII and gives me my choice of a number of gauges, one of which is an actual temperature gauge. It has never exceeded 200F and normally stays at 196F once things are warmed up. Would you recommend my adding coolant and trying to let it run? I figure I could watch the temperature and if it went above 200F I could shut it down and then try real hard to have a brilliant idea. It may be that I had lost more coolant than I thought and maybe the leak was a blessing in disguise and alerted me to the problem before disaster struck.
What would you guys do next?
The coolant reservoir I bought is the wrong one. It is for a closed system and my Jeep has the open system they switched to late in the KJ run. I have run into this before, most notably with my KK PCV valve. I will return it and try again. I think I can replace that without having to drain the whole dratted mess again.
Speaking of draining, I got very little coolant out. The radiator petcock dribbled away for a good long time. (Several hours, while I was fiddling with all the other stuff.) I also replaced the hoses and thermostat, which one would think would allow everything to drain really well. Even so, I got only a gallon or so out. So, there is either roughly two gallons still in there or my coolant had been leaking far more than I thought. I first noticed the leak while it was parked in my garage and if I had to guess the amount that leaked there I would put that at about a quart. The little bit that missed the bucket while draining it today was on a concrete driveway and amounted to practically nothing. So, where is the rest? Dripped out all over town? Or still stuck in the system somehow? My driving these days is mostly three miles each way to the gym and four miles each way to church, barely enough time to get the thing up to normal operating temperature.
The last time I did this I recall having trouble getting the system filled. In fact, I remember coming here and one of the old-timers (I think it was TJKJ) suggested I pop one end of the lower hose and pour some coolant directly into that, which did the trick. The weird thing is that I could still see fluid when I looked in the radiator cap hole - it was like it never actually drained.
I did start the Jeep for about ten seconds and it fired right up. I did not want to let it run longer than that to find out if it was going to overheat. I have an add-on for my Garmin called the Garmin Mechanic which plugs directly into the ODBII and gives me my choice of a number of gauges, one of which is an actual temperature gauge. It has never exceeded 200F and normally stays at 196F once things are warmed up. Would you recommend my adding coolant and trying to let it run? I figure I could watch the temperature and if it went above 200F I could shut it down and then try real hard to have a brilliant idea. It may be that I had lost more coolant than I thought and maybe the leak was a blessing in disguise and alerted me to the problem before disaster struck.
What would you guys do next?
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