89 XJ Overheating Please Help!!!!!!

This is my first post since I have joined so please bear with me...I bought a 89 xj few months ago,immediately rc 6.5" lift with spacers 33's Bfgs and few other suspension mods.Well everything was going great until she started overheating everytime I drive her,before I lifted,it was running hot however I planned to fix everything at once so I put the lift on then I went and bought a 185 thermostat and got a oem radiator that my buddy had bought but never used.My xj still overheats lol of course I checked all the hoses they all feel good and pressurized when they should be,my coolant overflow bottle isnt all cracked up,my radiator isnt cracked up or dirty,the coolant that I have flushed doesnt look dirty at all,my oil looks great and visa versa.So yesterday I decided to take the thermostat out to see what would happen and well the temp shot right up to red again just like with a thermostat.Oh yea I did replace all my factory fans with new ones and I put on a electric fan also so Im running two electric fans and a clutch fan.I have burped the system did everything I know to do but for some reason no matter what I do it seems like she gets hot and water starts to seep and boil out of my coolant overflow tank,thats how I know the guage is correct when the gauage reads hot then water is trying to boil out or starting to seep out hot.
Please does anybody have any ideas...I joined this forum couple months ago b/c that is when my xj started overheating and I do believe I have read every single thread about overheating and almost tried everything.

tried a compresion check ? possibly a cracked head with all the overheating, had a problem with my 90 but when i changed to a two core radiator it stopped all the issues with it.

No I havent tried that but I can do that here in a minute and see what happens with that..thanks

A couple of questions?

Is the bottle swelling up any?

Are you going by the temp on the dash? they are not always correct!

Have you "burped" the closed system properly?

The bottle doesn't seem like its swelling any at just wanting to steam out or leak out very hot water when it begins to overheat. I am going by the gauage on the dash however when it reads hot then usually its boiling over pretty good. I did burp it however I just tried to go by how I read to do it on this forum so who knows if its the right way or not?? I did try something today that seemed to keep the temp down very considerably even tho right now I do still have the thermostat out just bc I am testing certain things trying to get this problem fixed. I cut the cat off and am running straight pipe right now and as soon as I did that if did not overheat all day so I don't know if that was somekind of freak thing or what?? I read it on here so hopefully that was my problem...I took it out for a hour on the highway climbed some hills and pretty much gave it hell and it never went past the first hash mark. I don't care if it runs cold bc all I do is play on the weeknds in it this is not a daily driver by no means. So guess I will see if this really fixed it here shortly plan on taking in out for a long trip tom. What do you think??

Sometimes getting back to basics helps, you need air flow and coolant flow. If either is interrupted or too little, it will cause overheating.
Air in the system acts as a partial blockage of coolant flow. Pumping hot exhaust gases into the system from a bad head gasket can overload the system with heat and also cause vapor blockages.
Just for the heck of it maybe disconnect the top heater hose at the water pump, plug it off and run another piece of hose from the pipe sticking out of the water pump into a big bucket. Coolant should come out of there pretty darned quick.
I'm thinking you have some sort of catastrophic pump failure or are pumping hot exhaust gases into the cooling system. I hate to send you down the wrong path, all I can do is share what I'd likely do in a similar situation.

Pumping hot exhaust gases into the system often causes the coolant to foam. You can often smell exhaust at the filler neck with the cap off.

Catastrophic pump failure is rare, though i just had one in my 96. The bearing got so bad the impeller just kind of flopped around in the housing.

I just wonder if it really could have been that easy as a stopped up cat...all that cooling sysytem work I did and it ends up being a cat that takes 30seconds to cut off. Now don't get me wrong its not overheating since I cut it off yesterday however I am not fully convinved yet that it is fixed...I hope it was that tho but not convinced.

A stopped up cat can cause numerous issues, especially exhaust heat and back pressure. Your temperature will sky rocket in and out of the truck for that matter. Your cat must have been cherry red at night. I used to be volunteer fire, and I've seen cars literally catch fire from a clogged up cat. It'll melt the undercoating to the point it will drip on and eventually catch the cat on fire. Buy a universal cat and be done with it. I doubt TN has an emission law. I know Kentucky doesn't, straight pipes all the way in KY lol.

I am having overheating issues also, I changed out the radiator,waterpum,thermostat and heat sending unit and it still runs hot up grades. I noticed last weekend that there is a rattling comeing from the cat and the mechanic that changed out the water pump said the cat may be bad. Is there a way to check weather or not it is bad?
I don't mean to jump this thread but I am having the same problem as the OP.

Note from DJ
I saved this link hope it helps
How do you check the Cat 7-12-10
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1038384

Ever since I have cut my cat off which I am still running straight pipes I haven't had an overheating issue at all...mine is pretty much just a trail rig and tn don't have any emissions where I live so cat free is probably the way I'm gonna be.I just feel bad that I changed out so much stuff and then it was a min fix.

the_shop said:

Ever since I have cut my cat off which I am still running straight pipes I haven't had an overheating issue at all...mine is pretty much just a trail rig and tn don't have any emissions where I live so cat free is probably the way I'm gonna be.I just feel bad that I changed out so much stuff and then it was a min fix.

Click to expand...

I am happy it worked out for you. I have heard of people who suffered the same pain as you did.

Shelby County, TN in which Memphis lies have testing centers. They look at the lights, the breaks and stick a probe up your tail then give you a printed report. It took all of my two (2) minutes with the technician. My friend who live less than a mile from me but in another county did not have to have his vehicle tested.