overheating

mattnmette · **Posted:** Sat Oct 22, 2005 7:02 pm

I hope someone can help. I went in a good amount of muddy water today and now the Jeep keeps overheating. I've washed the engine bay to get all the mud of the engine and radiator, refilled the coolant and to no prevail. What do you think could be the problem.

Thanks,
Matt

KJ04 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 22, 2005 7:14 pm

Is your Elect. Radiator fan working? If not, then the fan motor is clogged with mud.

Pull your electric fan motor out, take the motor cover off and you will most likely find dried mud caked on the armature brushes and springs preventing contact with the armature.

Rinse till clean and pack the rear copper contacts with die-electric greese and reassemble. Very simple, no special tools, and will take about 45 min.

mattnmette · **Posted:** Sun Oct 23, 2005 1:56 pm

Ok I tried that and it seemed to help but I still get ocational peeks in temp. Could this be due to air in the line?

KJ04 · **Posted:** Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:57 pm

Was the fan working? Were the brushes and springs caked with mud? And what kind of peaks are you geting in temp?
It could be a faulty thermostat.

AdamIsAdam · **Posted:** Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:14 pm

Once you get that fan working, and you're SURE that it is, don't forget to clean the mud out of the lower part of the radiator. You may want to spray it from the engine side outward when the fan shroud is removed. Large particles of mud and stuff that can't fit all the way through the radiator will be lodged in there and sparying from the grill inward will not get them out. Also, the parts of the rad that are blocked by the AC condensor and the other coolers in front of the radiator will prevent spots from getting truly clean. Without room for air to water contact, that radiator is nothing more than a metal storage tank for hot coolant. (that's bad).

You'll want to spray with a garden hose and not a high pressure spray. Too much psi can start to bend your cooling fins (again, bad)

These are not uncommon problems with KJ's unfortunately.

Cacher123 · **Posted:** Sun Oct 23, 2005 10:45 pm

After leaving Paragon last year (lots of mud). I ran the Jeep through a car wash (twice), opened the hood and found all kinds of mud. Gunked it and got rid of that and thought I was all done. Then I looked into the radiator and it was totally caked with mud! Took me at least 1/2 hour with the spray nozzle before the water ran clean. Sprayed from both the inside and the outside of the engine bay.

Bri · **Posted:** Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:34 pm

When spraying out the radiator, be careful ... a high pressure car wash spray nozzle exerts enough force to bend the little heat exchanger vanes flat (closed), then they don't work well anymore.

Had a buddy (wasn't me, I swear) completely shut off air flow through his radiator by bending nearly every one of the little suckers flat with a car wash sprayer ...

WV(0)IIIIIII(0) · **Posted:** Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:02 am

Bri wrote:

When spraying out the radiator, be careful ... a high pressure car wash spray nozzle exerts enough force to bend the little heat exchanger vanes flat (closed), then they don't work well anymore.

Had a buddy (wasn't me, I swear) completely shut off air flow through his radiator by bending nearly every one of the little suckers flat with a car wash sprayer ...

Good point. I don't know where to get it (maby your local parts store) but AC repair and service techs have a spray that will eat the garbage out of a radiator. You can probably contact a place like this to find the product or ask a parts store.

mattnmette · **Posted:** Wed Oct 26, 2005 1:41 pm

Ok you guys were right, it stoped over heating on the road so I thought everything was ok but I stressed it a little at a construction site and it overheated again. I came home looked at the forum and found out how to take the radiator out and fully clean it and, ding ding ding, we have a winner. I took it back to the construction site and beat the hell out of it. NO OVERHEATING.

AdamIsAdam · **Posted:** Wed Oct 26, 2005 6:26 pm

did you take the fan apart too, or jsut clean the radiator?

Talon 1 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:46 pm

Another small thing that helps is "Water Wetter" which you can get at most auto stores. I quote their site:

WaterWetter® is a unique wetting agent for cooling systems which reduces coolant temperatures by as much as 30ºF. This liquid product can be used to provide rust and corrosion protection in plain water for racing engines, which provides much better heat transfer properties than glycol-based antifreeze. Or it can be added to new or used antifreeze to improve the heat transfer of ethylene and propylene glycol systems. Designed for modern aluminum, cast iron, copper, brass and bronze systems. Compatible with all antifreezes, including the latest long-life variations.

I used it in my built up Stang and it worked and I used it after I had issues with the lib. So far, I tested it at OBX and GWNF and no issues but I probably have to do what`s been mentioned above.

Mike

SD-KJ · **Posted:** Wed Oct 26, 2005 10:00 pm

Talon 1 wrote:

Another small thing that helps is "Water Wetter" which you can get at most auto stores. I quote their site:

WaterWetter® is a unique wetting agent for cooling systems which reduces coolant temperatures by as much as 30ºF. This liquid product can be used to provide rust and corrosion protection in plain water for racing engines, which provides much better heat transfer properties than glycol-based antifreeze. Or it can be added to new or used antifreeze to improve the heat transfer of ethylene and propylene glycol systems. Designed for modern aluminum, cast iron, copper, brass and bronze systems. Compatible with all antifreezes, including the latest long-life variations.

I used it in my built up Stang and it worked and I used it after I had issues with the lib. So far, I tested it at OBX and GWNF and no issues but I probably have to do what`s been mentioned above.

Mike

I am asuming that anyone in COLD weather should NOT be using these products?

i am from SD and it gets darn Cold up here in the winter so we need a much higher concentrate of antifreeze....

-Nick

Talon 1 · **Posted:** Wed Oct 26, 2005 10:09 pm

I had no problems with it in the winters of Pa. And at that time, we even had a blizzard if I remember correctly.

Funny thing about this is that I lived in the boonies and drove even in snowstorms to work (I was the night mgr at a store) and I used to get calls from employees that lived 10 mins down the road from the store saying they couldn`t make it...Ya, and I made it from 20+ miles up and down big hills in a souped up `96 stang... :roll:

mattnmette · **Posted:** Thu Oct 27, 2005 10:01 pm

I took the fan apart. cleaned it, sprayed it and lubed it. I also removed about 5 pounds of mud from various areas around the rad. Then to top it off I refilled the radiator with new coolant. STILL NO OVERHEATING WHICH IS GOOD BECAUSE MY WIFE WAS READY TO KILL ME WHEN IT HAPPENED. (LOL)

sleeve84028 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 27, 2005 10:10 pm

SD-KJ wrote:

I am asuming that anyone in COLD weather should NOT be using these products?

i am from SD and it gets darn Cold up here in the winter so we need a much higher concentrate of antifreeze....

-Nick

You can add the "water wetter" product in with your current coolant / water mix. The stuff works pretty good.

ManicMechanicJoe · **Posted:** Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:52 am

Instead of using water, I recommend compressed air-it tends to bend the fins less, wet the mud with a garden hose and use a "blow gun" to get the mud out. I have had the same problem again and again.

AdamIsAdam · **Posted:** Fri Dec 23, 2005 11:49 am

GREAT TIP!

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