Walked to work this morning; 92xj smoking/overheating?

bafuller83 · Oct 5, 2011

On my way to work, a a-hole cuts me off, I gun-it around him, he eats my dust, which turns out to be smoke (steam), temp rises, stop at a parking lot ½ from a 35 mile drive to work, popped hood, what looks like water everywhere on the passenger side which, I guess, is causing the smoke (steam).

Air temp this morning was about 50.

It was dark and I didn’t really get a chance to examine anything.

Don’t know a lot about diagnosing. Maybe when I “gunned-it” an important hose popped off allowing water and/or coolant to leak. I dunno. The engine didn’t really seem to be too hot.

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

birchlakeXJ · Oct 5, 2011

You must perform a close physical inspection under the engine bay.

You mention that it "looks like water everywhere".

So most likely some cooling system component (hose, etc) blew out.

With this catastrophic of a failure, it shouldn't be hard to isolate.

1991Jeep_Man · Oct 5, 2011

If it was on the passenger side, I would take a close look at your heater control valve. IIRC, your year XJ still has it, the little black valve looking thing connecting your heater hoses to/from the engine. I simply started my XJ up one day and out of nowhere it started pissing coolant. Doesn't take much to make these things blow when they're old. I imagine when you gunned it, the heater control valve just blew. The loss of hot coolant would have caused your steam and overheating. I hope you get it up and going again! IIRC, you can just bypass the control valve by just using longer heater hose and caping the little vacuum line. Later XJ's did the same thing to eliminate the valve. OR you can replace it... I think $20?

bafuller83 · Oct 6, 2011

FIXED! Got off work; walked to jeep; as soon as I popped the hood I could see that a hose connecting to the heater control valve had broken off. Went to Autozone down the street and $30 (valve $18, coolant $12)and 30 minutes later she purred again. You guys are awesome! Thanks for all of your help!

1991Jeep_Man said:
If it was on the passenger side, I would take a close look at your heater control valve. IIRC, your year XJ still has it, the little black valve looking thing connecting your heater hoses to/from the engine. I simply started my XJ up one day and out of nowhere it started pissing coolant. Doesn't take much to make these things blow when they're old. I imagine when you gunned it, the heater control valve just blew. The loss of hot coolant would have caused your steam and overheating. I hope you get it up and going again! IIRC, you can just bypass the control valve by just using longer heater hose and caping the little vacuum line. Later XJ's did the same thing to eliminate the valve. OR you can replace it... I think $20?

1991Jeep_Man · Oct 7, 2011

bafuller83 said:
FIXED! Got off work; walked to jeep; as soon as I popped the hood I could see that a hose connecting to the heater control valve had broken off. Went to Autozone down the street and $30 (valve $18, coolant $12)and 30 minutes later she purred again. You guys are awesome! Thanks for all of your help!

arty: Glad you got 'er up and runnin again. I've come to the conclusion that XJ's do these little scares to keep us ever vigilant lol.

tjmotter · Oct 7, 2011

Consider yourself VERY lucky!! I had the exact same thing happen to my '92 and it turned out the frost plugs had rusted out. The dealer wouldn't even touch it but I found a smaller shop who replaced them all for $400.

Major PITA

Glad you got it worked out.

Todd

Walked to work this morning; 92xj smoking/overheating?

bafuller83

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birchlakeXJ

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1991Jeep_Man

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bafuller83

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1991Jeep_Man

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tjmotter

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