Well, that was fun….
Got up this morning and prepared to head out to the auto shop on base to swap out the radiator. My father in law was coming along as well to lend a hand. As I'm checking to make sure I have all the hoses and clamps ready to take along he grabs the new radiator and asks if he should just put it tin the back of his truck and I replay I'd rather put it in the Jeep where it won't slide around, and then I go back to collecting the other parts. He realizes that he forgot his gloves at his house (a mile away) so he drives back to get them and says he'll meet me at the shop. I grab the rest of my stuff, hop in the Jeep and back down the driveway.
CRUNCHI get out to find the new radiator laying behind the passenger rear tire with the plastic brackets cracked and one of them wedged through the core. Crap. So much for the $145 I paid radiatorbarn.com for it. Seems he thought the KJ was still locked so he leaned the radiator box against the back bumper. I always walk around my vehicles before driving off and glance at the tires to make sure they look ok, but for some reason today I didn't. Wish I had.
Since I don't often have a free day to spend working on the Jeep I figured I'd call around town and try to find another radiator, fully expecting to pay quite a bit more for the second new one. I ended up finding a shop in town that had a radiator from Performance Radiator in stock, and for $10 cheaper than I paid for the one from radiatorbarn. This radiator actually did not have the internal tranny cooler. We drove quickly across town to buy the radiator and then headed to the shop to do the swap.
As we began the install it quickly became evident that the factory service manual is useless quite often, due to poor editing and quality control, and frequently just plain wrong information. It of course did not cover removing the external tranny cooler as it was (theoretically) written for KJs with the in-radiator tranny cooler. The steps for removing the mechanical fan were incorrect, asking us to use a tool to hold the shaft in place using notches that did not exist on the shaft that is actually in my KJ. We ended up leaving the mechanical fan in place and trimming a 1/4" from the bottom center of the shroud so it would slide over the fan clutch.
While it was obvious at first glance that the A/C condenser, tranny cooler and power steering cooler were bolted to the radiator the FSM did not mention this either. It also failed to mention that even after unbolting all of these parts that the ac condenser is still slotted into brackets on the radiator and it will take a second person to hold it up and out of the way while you attempt to yank the radiator out from behind it and maneuver the radiator mounting bracket around the A/C hard lines. All this while trying not to smash any of the delicate fins on any of the three coolers or the A/C condenser.
After finally getting everything apart we figured it would be a good time to look around for my powersteering fluid leak. The staff mechanic at the shop suggested that I turn the engine on and crank the wheel from side to side while he watched for the leak. I did so and after about 5 seconds someone yells to turn it off. I quickly do and jump out to see what's going on. Apparently we're morons and didn't think about the fact that the tranny cooler was disconnected, so with the engine on it was pumping my ATF+4 all over the floor. Awesome… The mechanic did at least find the source of the leak. It's not the powersteering pump. It's not the pressure hoses either. It's leaking at the seal on the top of the rack, around the steering column. Yay for more expensive parts! I guess we know what I'm doing next weekend.
We finally got everything cleaned up and reassembled but by this time the shop was already supposed to be closed for 30 minutes. I climbed in the Jeep, figuring that I would drive it 2 miles down the road to Autozone and get some ATF+4 to replace the small (or so I thought at the time) amount I had lost all over the floor.
Engine on.
Shift into reverse.
Foot off brake.
Go nowhere.
Seems there wasn't enough fluid left to shift. We push the Jeep out of the shop, out to a parking lot across the street, and leave it there while we take the truck down to Autozone to get that ATF+4. 3 quarts later it's back to proper levels and will actually shift into gear.
While filling up with ATF I notice oil buildup around the hose to the PCV. Guess I need to replace that too. At least those are cheap.
So that was my adventure with radiator replacement (or "How Not to Save Money Doing Your Own Repairs"). I've never had so many issues working on a vehicle. I guess it just wasn't my day. That and my brain went on vacation apparently. Hopefully the R&P replacement will go better!
So, anyone know a place to get an R&P at a good price? If not I'll settle for directions to a good bar.
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My KJ was built after the change from the 45RFE to the 42RLE and has the external transmission cooler, not the in-the-radiator-tank one.
, but that would be more money and a lot of work (pulling the t-case, installing the cooling loop from an H1 NV242AMG, etc, etc etc), so scratch that.
