radiator flushing issue and shocks weirdness

Hi all,

I have a 2000 Cherokee Sport 4.0L, that I bought recently (MY FIRST JEEP ), and am doing a tuneup, it has about 35K miles, aside from changing the oil... looks like basic maintenance was like a foreign language to the previous owner.

I am in the middle of doing the tuneup of my jeep, and started to do the procedure of flushing my radiator. The petcock from my radiator is aiming towards the passenger side has about 1/2 inch clearance from the support, it is a PITA to work with. I removed the radiator grill and still no clearance. One other thing, the drain valve is on the bottom of the radiator... right? The service manual shows it as being about the middle of the radiator... seems illogical.Any advice please, or do I just have to grin and just bear it?

Also while I am underneath the Jeep, I noticed where the stock shocks within the coil springs are not contacting the bottom. The red rubber (boot?) is the end of the shock... am I wrong or what? I nudged it a little, and fluid came out, it smells like radiator fluid, kinda muddy rusty yellow. Is it supposed to hang like that? Is it time for a change to new shocks? If so, what do you guys recommend? Handling and ride and cost in that order please. Thanks all!

well congrats on the "new"jeep... take care of it and it will ove you forever.. first off, the petcock on the radiator is a tight fit, and as you figured, the grill has to come out to get to it... i havent drained my 99's coolant but my 87 is a real tight squeeze.. grin and bear it... the "shocks" you reffer to INSIDE the coil springs are just bump-stops to keep the axle from travelling too far up and hitting the body of the truck.. when i did my lift last month i also had fluid "drain" out of it when i messed with it.. i think its just rain water that gets trapped up inside it and the rubber bumper acts as a cork to hold it in... i thought of drilling a drain hole in it to keep it from rotting out.... the actual "shocks" are mounted next to the coil springs and mount from the axle to the upper fender well..... at 35K miles it would probably be a good idea to get them replaced..
mike

stupid radiator... radiator:1, me: 0

thanks sidriptide,

ok, at least I am not the only one has problems opening the darn thing. I don't see a nut to open mine, it looks like a miniture gas cap handle, it is really freaking tight, especially when there is no room to put my hand in there. I am afraid if I put my monkey wrench to it, it will break. HELP!!!!!! :banghead:

LMAO, that was my first impression, took one look and thought "Man, those are the weirdest shocks I have ever seen".....
As for the radiator/cooling.
No it is on the passenger side, the radiator drain is in that tight spot, I made a special tool to loosen and tighten it on my 98 and yes it is a PIA. I did that once then went out and bought a $5.00 hand pump, some thin plastic hoses and drain/pump it out from the filler neck, I have also taken the return hose off the rad and stuffed the hose down that hole to hand pump it out.
Now I just take it to a local garage where they draw a vacumn on the cooling system and remove all the coolant, refill with distilled water. Then I add a bottle of Prestone 7 hour HD cleaner, burp it and drive it for a couple of days. Then I take it back and drain the cleaner/water, refill with Mopar coolant that I premix with 50/50 Mopar and distilled water. Also during that time I replace the thermostat and the pressure cap, remove the overflow bottle and clean that out good.
If all is unknown about your new jeep I would do ALL the fluids including the oil n filter, transfer case, tranny, differentials, coolant. I would also replace the thermostat, pressure cap, air filter and maybe do a serpentine belt, keep the old one as a spare for emergencies under the back seat.
I would also grease it, look at your plastic resevoir on the master cylinder, if the brake fluid is black I would flush that also.
Some 'necessary items' for true jeep ownership:
#1 Factory Service Manual, available from the dealer or in the back of the owner manual. About $100 but worth it. Mine has paid for itself at least 10 times over. It is the size of a big city phone book and covers only your year.

#2 Long 1/2 drive torque wrench that goes up to 100ft/lbs at least. That is for torqueing your lug nuts to 90Ft/lbs, helps keep the front rotors from warping. Most auto parts stores have cheap ones for under $40 that are 2ft long.

Rule #1 ALWAYS retorque your lug nuts after a tire store has put them on with a gorilla gun.

Rule #2 Just say no to Fram filters. I use Mopar OEM, Mobil-1, K&N. I also only run Mobil-1 oil and lubes from bumper to bumper.

Check out your front steering stablizer, they generally start to leak around 40,000mi, mine went at 37K. Replaced mine with a Rancho.
Run a couple of bottles of Chevron Techron fuel system cleaner thru every 10,000mi or so, does a good job.
When you clean the throttle body out of carbon with spray cleaner careful you don't get any on the sensors, most of those FI cleaners are hostile to plastics.

Nice to have tool is a LONG 15MM wrench to reach the idler pully to loosen the fan belt as well as a Krikit II belt tension gauge available from NAPA for around $12 or so, fits in your pocket.

I'm at 183,000mi on my 98, got it in dec of 97, and plan on keeping it for quite a while longer. Just replaced the factory OEM battery with an Optima Red top and I will say it spins the motor over with a bit more gusto than the original, guess it was going downhill gradually enough for me not to notice it, but boy when that new one went in it was pretty obvious once I got it fully charged up.

Thats about all I can think of off hand.
Oh, welcome to the club

Hey RichP,

will ya forgive me for using a Fram air filter? anyways no luck with the stupid flush, managed to drain about 2 gallons of coolant, can i still use the Prestone radiator cleaner even though it is partially empty and still run it for 7 hours? the way the radiator is setup it is impossible to use a hand pump, so i guess i will see the mechanic tommorrow

man oh man, i hope changing the auto tranny fluid isn't too hard, now where is the differential? the rear axle pumpkin thingy? I only have a 2wd Jeep. no 4x4 for me

Transfer case? front steering stablizer? Some of this stuff is beyond me, i guess i will this up to the pros

Thanks for your input man, i gonna get some dinner and hope for the best tommorrow

For now - but you might want to use something else (I get Wix filters at my local, and won't use much of anything else. Price is comparable to Fram, but the filter is miles better!)

The steering stabiliser is found on the steering linkage up front - it looks like a shock that's mounted crossways (in fact, that's exactly what it is!)

Changing the fluid in the AW4 auto is easy - there's a drain plug! Make sure to put a magnet in your drain path, and let the fluid run over it. The filter is just a coarse metal screen (it would be more correctly called a "strainer,") so use the magnet to see if there is any metal. If it is relatively clean, you shouldn't need to drop the pan. Refill with four quarts of Dexron II/III.

The differential is the pumpkin in the rear, just like you guessed. Remove all but the top bolt, and loosen the top. Let drain, then remove top bolt, clean mating surfaces, install new gasket, cover, and refill until gear oil starts to weep from fill hole. I put studs in the top holes for much the same reason (keep cover from falling and splashing) as well as helping keep the gasket in place while I wrestle with cover & bolts - makes my life much easier. The D35 is 5/16"-18 bolts, I don't know about the ChryCo 8.25 (the ChryCo axle has a "flat" bottom to the pumpkin, the D35 is more of an "oval" shape.) Make sure you don't have an LSD - you can find the build # for the axle on a metal tag held by the cover bolts - post it here and we'll see what we can find out. The presence of an LSD (Limited-Slip Differential) REQUIRES the addition of a "friction modifier" for the clutches in the assembly...

If you're 2WD, then there is no front axle and no transfer case to worry about. When you get a 4WD (you'll want one soon!) the transfer case is located directly aft of the transmission, and (in our case) uses the same fluid. Servicing the front axle is just like servicing the rear.

I have the early "closed" system (no pressure cap on the radiator,) so I've devised this method for flushing...

1) You will need a decent flush tee - I made mine from 3/8" pipe fittings, using all brass - and added a brass hose bibb cap to close under operation. The 3/8" pipe nipples will just fit inside the 5/8"id rubber heater hose. Break the feed line to the heater, which comes from the pipe on the water pump and runs down the passenger side of the block.

2) Add the flush chemical of your choice, and follow instructions.

2.5) - LET THE ENGINE COOL!

3) Pull the block drain plug on the driver's side of the engine block, down by the oil pan. If you can't get to that easily, there should also be a coolant temperature sensor down there, pull it instead (it goes into the jacket anyhow.)

4) Connect your hose to the COLD engine, run the engine with the hose going enough to keep the water jacket full or close to it. Keep the heater running so you can flush the heater core.

5) Let ALL the tap water drain from the engine! IMPORTANT!

6) Reinstall drain plug/sensor, and refill with distilled or reverse-osmosis filtered water and antifreeze of choice.

If you are going to flush your cooling system every two years (like you should!) it is also a good idea to change hoses and thermostat before you refill. Call it "cheap insurance" against a failure. Also, be sure to spend the small amount of money on the distilled or R/O water - it helps prevent the formation of scale inside the cooling system. I keep several gallons in the garage (I also use it in the iron exclusively, so it won't scale either...)

5-90

EDIT - where are you, anyway? I'm sure someone in your area (wherever that is) will be happy to help you get the swing of things until you can do it all on your own...

5-90

I gave up on trying to get to that drain plug and just got a cheap Prestone Flush Kit - it has a little T-valve that goes in one of your hoses. It let's you flush the system out pretty easily using a garden hose. Works well for me....

Yep, that's what I use too. Seems to work pretty well.

The real 'trick' to this cooling system thing is to get ALL the old anti-freeze mix out of the engine and into a container without getting any on the ground. Stuff is hazardous to animals.
I've toyed around with the idea of removing the top radiator return hose and routing it into a container, then adding water to the filler neck with the engine running and the heater in the on/hot position till it runs clear. Done a couple of drawings it should look like and after seeing my friends snapon system have a better idea of what I need, it will just be MUCH cheaper to build
Been looking at electric pumps in an old mcmasters catalog so that I can draw a vacumn. One of those winter projects along with having to repaint the great room now that we had all the skylights replaced. That 25ft high ceiling is going to be a PIA

So, what do you use for a catch can when draining? I've never had enough luck getting ALL of it, so I make sure to dilute it beyond recognition...

A note on the Prestone kit - I have found that those plastic T's become brittle with age, and that is why I started making mine out of brass plumbing parts. Like I said, the OD of 3/8" pipe is about 5/8", I leave the threads on the nipples to help the hose seal, and the all-brass parts should last years...

The issue with using distilled (R/O is okeh - it's basically a modified distillation with less heat and power involved, and is only a step removed from chemically pure, de-ionised water) is that regular tap water - even water of good quality - carried minerals and impurities that come from the source AND that it picks up along the way from the plumbing. There's nothing that can be done about it unless you treat it when it gets to your home...

The only soft water that will work for this is the version run through a silver zeolite softener, the regular "rock salt" version still carries salt - not enough to be bad for you, but enough to put free ions in the water and that will encourage electrolysis. You won't get rid of ions even in purified water (there are still H+ and OH- radicals running around) but it is close enough to not matter. Adding to that is what causes trouble...

I seem to recall that one could actually test the effectiveness of antifreeze with a multimeter, but I don't recall the specification for that. I know it was looking for a voltage between a probe immersed in the solution and a probe connected to ground - anyone know more?

If you are going to pressure-flush your system with compleat displacement, why would you need to draw a vacuum? Since there are not enough parts in the system where it would collapse, I don't see how you would get all of it, unless I am missing something? I didn't think a vacuum would be enough to cause total evaporation in the system...

5-90

Hey guys,

I live in Orlando, my neighbour is a famous rodent, whose lights always keep me awake.

thanks for all the input, and the steps on how to do it, the problem is I can't get past step 2, opening the freaking drain! All I get is a dribble! step one BTW, is taking off the radiator cap hehehe

the radiator... I gave up hope of doing it myself, I tinkered it for about 5 hours today. So I took off to see a pal across town, and I forgot to replace the water that I had already drained (about 2 gallons), so the Jeep overheated on the highway, and had to pull over...as soon as I came to a stop, the engine just quit. Fortunately I had a couple gallons of water with me, so now I am ok. The engine was smoking a little bit, hope I didn't cause irrepable damage.

I had tried to put a 1/4 inch hose to the drain plug to drain the coolant into a bucket... after 20 minutes of excerise in frustration, I said f*ck that. It is impossible with no space. So now, I am not gonna push my luck on doing any more tuneups other than changing the oil, I am gonna let the pros do it. I am gonna stop by after work to see a mechanic to take care of my poor Jeep. It has been through hell, thanks to me. Today was one heck of a birthday... sheesh.

5-90 thanks for the explaining the terms to me I learned alot. Never heard of Wix filters though, I guess it is a regional thing.

So tommorrow, I have to refill my Jeep with plain water to go to work since it will leak overnight. Then I have to refill it before leaving work and see a mechanic. At least that is my game plan.

I watched the snapon rep do an Oldsmobile with the snapon flush machine, removed the upper rad hose, connected up an adapter to the hose and turned the box on. 2 min later ~3-4 gallons of coolant in the drain container, moved a couple of hoses and refilled with new coolant mix. Watched them do a tranny flush, brake flush, fuel system flush and an oil system flush.
The tranny flush was interesting, it flushed it, drained it and he refilled it with new fluid. The interesting part was the Mobil ATF was generic, HE added the mobil chemicals to make it Dexron or 7176 or whatever the specs called for from a kit of additives. Saves space I guess, he just keeps one 50 gallon drum of ATF on hand for all occasions.
As soon as I get a free day my XJ is going in for a brake, coolant, FI cleaning.
Another cool thing, Mobil-1 comes in 25 gallon drums If I ever get a garage

Well... let's see him do it with my type of radiator, then I will be impressed!

RichP said:

I watched the snapon rep do an Oldsmobile with the snapon flush machine...

Click to expand...

RichP said:

Rule #1 ALWAYS retorque your lug nuts after a tire store has put them on with a gorilla gun.

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By then it's too late -- the rotors will already be warped.

The rule should be "Never let a shop mount your wheels on your vehicle." Buy a set of used XJ, YJ, or TJ (or ZJ) rims and tires, and when you need your primary rims and/or tires worked on, take 'em off. Put the extra wheels and tires on and drive your wheels to the tire shop in the back of your Jeep. Drop 'em off, and pick 'em up when finished. Take 'em home and install them yourself, with the aforementioned torque wrench.

Since it's difficult to find replacement lug nuts that are 3/4" like the OEM, a handy accessory to go with the torque wrench is a Sears "flip" socket. They are in the impact tools section, by the air compressor, not with the regular sockets. The flip socket has a 3/4" socket on one end and a 13/16" socket on the other. Get a 3" extension to go with it, and you'll be set for just about any lugnut you're likely to encounter.

dogtired said:

I am in the middle of doing the tuneup of my jeep, and started to do the procedure of flushing my radiator. The petcock from my radiator is aiming towards the passenger side has about 1/2 inch clearance from the support, it is a PITA to work with. I removed the radiator grill and still no clearance.

Click to expand...

a little late, however in addition to removing the Radiator Grill, remove what I think the FSM calls the 'Front Operating Panel'. After removing that (piece of cake), the petcock should be pretty easy to get to. It was on my 2000.

RADIATOR PETCOCK

Call me slow,stupid or any other name but what I did is remove the electric fan, two screws on the top and pulled it out.
I then removed the heater hose by thermostat housing and flushed the radiator by putting a garden hose in radiator neck and letting all the coolant collect in a bucket.
In order to drain the radiator I just pulled the lower hose and let the block drain(clean water by now). very accessable with the fan out of the way.
I stopped at a dealership and that is what they said they do!.

The tune up was simple. Three bolts holds the coil pack to the block. Remember to put antiseise on the plugs and bolts that hold the coil pack to head.

I think if you remove the lower hose most of the coolant gets out of the block. It should be ok if you run a couple loads of distilled water through everything