which fan?

I'm having some overheating issues. Everything is fine when I drive to the trail, but once I get on the trail, the temp gauge stays no less that around 220* and doesn't go down even on the drive home. I swapped the thermostat out for a 180* one, pulled the water pump-looked brand new, drained and flushed the coolant, and still having issues. I ditched the stock mech fan and swapped in the 2 spd taurus fan last year, so it's not the clutch. The high side still kicks on at 216*, and stays on. I'm thinking I've got a couple options: 1. swap in a bigger radiator for around $200 2. pull the A/C condesener out from behind the grill so the radiator gets cooler air through it 3. get rid of the taurus fan and swap in 2 stock electic fans and wire them the same way my taurus fan is. I've got a pretty big tranny cooler and a pretty big power steering cooler, seeing how they both get really hot, I'm thinking they're pre-heating the air going through the radiator to the point where it's not sufficently cooling anything past them. Thoughts?

You're not really overheating unless you're boiling over. 220 to 230 is still OK. If you don't use the AC, yeah, pulling the condenser out will help air flow.

How about changing the temperature sensor so the fans will come on sooner?

BTW, running a 180 degree thermostat does not effect the cooling, it simply takes the engine a little longer to get up to the temperature that it is going to get to anyway.

Run less anti freeze and more water.

spray compressed air in thru the back side of the radiator to get all the dirt and bugs and shit out of there. mine had a little high heat problem so i decided to do that and i was surprised at how much shit comes out.

I've boiled over twice on the trail, so yes I'm overheating. Sorry, I didn't mention that originally. The low side of the fan kicks on at between 190-195*, don't think it needs to kick on before that. I know the 180* thermostat isn't going to help cool it any quicker, I replaced it more because I didn't want to test in and it was $5. The radiator is bug free, I clean it about once a month when I wash the Jeep.

jwtrapper said:

Run less anti freeze and more water.

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Now I never thought about this. . . I guess I got wrapped up in the XJ's overheating issues I didn't even check the basics. Thanks, I'll grab the refractometer and take a look.

I've heard just plain water and Redline water wetter is the best combo you can put in your coolant system.

You're probably right that the other coolers are preventing the radiator from removing enough heat. On mine I believe the tranny fluid is actually heating the coolant back up before it leaves the radiator. The difficult thing is there's not much room for coolers anywhere in the front. I am seriously considering moving a tranny cooler to the rear of the vehicle somewhere. I don't want to run the tranny fluid through the radiator any more. I figure the condenser from an in window air conditioner would be the perfect cooler for tranny fluid and it is compact enough to be put in the rear somewhere. Has anyone ever mounted coolers in the back of your rig? Where did you put them?

jwtrapper said:

Run less anti freeze and more water.

Click to expand...

Sorry, you got it backwards. You will raise the boiling point of the coolant by running 70% antifreeze and 30% water.

how clean is the INSIDE of the radiator, hoses and overflow tank? i had a ton of crud in my cooling system from the prior owner. it took many flushes, new water pump, hoses and radiator to get my cooling bug under control. there was debris that had attatched itself to the inside of the cooling system and clogged up the tubes of the radiator.

sunburned said:

I've heard just plain water and Redline water wetter is the best combo you can put in your coolant system.

Click to expand...

This is what I run on my ranger with an electric fan, no more heat problems.

Are you running BOTH the A/C fan and the Taurus fan like I show in my write up?
http://www.go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoTaurusFanInstall1.htm
That way you have double the fan output AND you have the auto cooler not heating up the air passing through the radiator.

stewie said:

how clean is the INSIDE of the radiator, hoses and overflow tank? i had a ton of crud in my cooling system from the prior owner. it took many flushes, new water pump, hoses and radiator to get my cooling bug under control. there was debris that had attatched itself to the inside of the cooling system and clogged up the tubes of the radiator.

Click to expand...

Clean, I flushed them twice and everything came out clean. When I pulled the water pump there wasn't any scale or anything I could see.

Gojeep said:

Are you running BOTH the A/C fan and the Taurus fan like I show in my write up?
http://www.go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoTaurusFanInstall1.htm
That way you have double the fan output AND you have the auto cooler not heating up the air passing through the radiator.

Click to expand...

I read your article way before I did my fan. I didn't have the room you did on yours, so I mounted mine horizantally which made me eliminate the aux fan. I'm using the ground for the aux. fan to kick on my high side fan, however. I'm going to pull the A/C condensor and reroute my tranny cooler lines off the radiator completely until it gets cold outside again. We'll see what that does.

Other with LHD's have followed my article and installed both. What was in the way with yours?

The upper and lower radiator support seemed to extend farther back. I did it over a year ago, so I'm a little fuzzy on what the deal was. I just remember I had to cut nearly all of the shroud down to the fan to get it between the radiator and engine. I have approximately 1/8" room between my fan and water pump pulley. I'll take some pictures when I get a chance.