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New Renix Coolant Bottle and Cap problems

Ecomike

NAXJA# 2091
NAXJA Member
Location
MilkyWay Galaxy
I bought a new coolant bottle about 3-4 years ago, put maybe 20,000 miles on it with a 160 F thermostat. I noticed cracks on the inside wall about six months ago and ordered a new bottle from 4wd.com/cherokee

I don't recall for sure but the first bottle 4 years ago was probably a dealer part, I know I paid a lot more for it. I wasn't keeping track or a log back then. I installed the new 4wd.com bottle about 8 weeks ago. I changed the thermostat to a 180 F 6 months ago, back around november

Today I was doing some work under the hood right after a short drive and I heard hissing from the coolant bottle, it was coming from the cap. I turned the cap to see if it was tight, and was surprised to see it turn, in fact I turned it and it popped off in my hands!!!

I just bought that bottle back around December 2007. This was not possible with the prior bottle and cap!!! In fact I saved the old bottle and cap as it was not dead yet. So I checked it, and sure enough you could not overtighten it and make the cap pop off. I tried swapping caps, and the old cap also popped off the new bottle, same way, just a little harder to turn it before it pops off. So in this case it is partly the bottle thread that is defective and not just the cap

I am going to retest this with a cold bottle in the morning.

I have read second hand accounts of this problem but only heard reports of bad caps, not bad bottle threads, over a year ago, but have not heard any recent new complaints, so this thread is find out who is making and selling these defective bottles, to organize some vendor feedback, and get a census of who is having what problems with who's Renix Turtle coolant bottles!

I just tested the new cap on the old bottle at room temperature and I can not turn the cap or make it pop off, so it must be the new bottle threads and not the cap that is the real problem. I did notice that the new bottle has a much thinner plastic wall around the cap thread area itself, so maybe they made that area too thin with these bottles?????

So Renix gear heads, go check your caps and bottles this weekend and post up your results. I need to order new, non-defective bottles and caps, but I don't know who has the good ones or the bad ones. They probably don't either!!!
 
Had the same problem recently, I smelled coolant popped the hood and she was peeing coolant. The bottle was fairly new (within six months) try and screw it on and it just pops off or screws on sideways . I blame it on a cheaply made cap. Tried a spare and bingo. The spare was an oem and felt stronger and stiffer. so far so good. The tanks will also get hot and deform (oval) and retain the memory in the plastic which also will lead to failure. had this problem with snowmobiles too,new cap will not always fix the problem. The aftermarket tanks are just not up to oem quality. thinner and cheaper. I think I paid 25 buck for the last one. Sure beats $213 for the jeep one. just carry a spare
 
Heck the bottle/cap I got from the dealer was crap quality and the cap kept popping off. I fixed it by replacing the radiator with a 92 setup and getting rid of the piece-o-crap.
 
another problem was the hood making contact with the bottle cap, had to lower the bracket
 
For a while, I used a hose clamp around the cap to squeeze it around the threads and tighten the fit.

I'm currently running a bottle from Quadratec and a dealer cap. No clamp needed.
 
Saudade said:
For a while, I used a hose clamp around the cap to squeeze it around the threads and tighten the fit.

I'm currently running a bottle from Quadratec and a dealer cap. No clamp needed.

The hose clamp sounds like a clever workable idea. Does the quadratec bottle look sturdier? When did you buy it?

bcmaxx,

I still have 2 that I need to lower the shelf on as the bottle cap still hits and rubs on the inner hood. In a way it keeps the cap from blowing off, :explosion, the way it is, but it is obvious to me now that the hood pressure damaged my last OEM bottle over time based on the location of the crack. The crack was along the lower rear side running length wise parallel to the hood pressure! It died prematurely due to the hood pressure.
 
My factory one did what you describe earlier this year, except it was tight and leaked pressure constantly.

My dealer one (new cap+bottle) started leaking a few days ago (month or so old) I can tighten it until it pops off, but if I tighten to where its a slightly past snug, it doesn't leak.

Piss poor design.
 
I bought the bottle sometime early last year as I recall. It replaced an OEM bottle. The only thing I remember is that the OEM bottle seemed "smoother". Otherwise I've had no other problems with the new bottle. It came with a cap and the cap loosened up after a few months. That's when I used the clamp.

When I replaced my rad some months back, I dropped the cap and it exploded apart. I couldn't seem to get it to stay together, so I went to my local dealer and got one. The two of them have been very happy together since. ;)
 
89CherokeePioneer said:
My factory one did what you describe earlier this year, except it was tight and leaked pressure constantly.

My dealer one (new cap+bottle) started leaking a few days ago (month or so old) I can tighten it until it pops off, but if I tighten to where its a slightly past snug, it doesn't leak.

Piss poor design.

I should mention that mine had a stable, constant liquid level, and was only leaking air with the engine just turned off. I also run a 180 F thermostat but my system reaches 200 F on occasion.

Is, was yours leaking liquid, or just gas??? By factory, do you mean aftermarket?
 
Anybody ever tried a pressure bottle from a newer vehicle?

Was looking at the grandparent's 05 Mercury Montego, it has the closed system. That pressurized bottle looks beefy as hell!

Or convert to the open system.

But I'd be interested to see if anybody ever tried a newer style bottle from a different vehicle. I'd guess the hardest part was making a different sized bottle fit!
 
89CherokeePioneer said:
.....

Piss poor design.

Design issues aside, My first new one held up fine for 4 years except for the hood and bottle shelf crushing it which caused a slow stress crack to form in the rear sidewall. If I had known to lower the bracket I suspect it would have lasted 5-6 years or so, not bad for plastic. I suspect some (maybe all) of the current bottles (their maybe more than one caster making them) are not as heavy a wall as the old, OEM or others were.

There are definate differences in several places on my new bottle and the old bottle. I like the internal piping on the new bottle much better than the old bottle. The old bottle would have liquid in it, about 1/3 full , but it let the water pump suck air out of the upper bottle at that liquid level. The new bottle I have from www.4wd.com/cherokee sucks only coolant until the bottle is empty, visably empty, HUGE difference in the bottles in that case!!!!!!!!! unfortunately, It is just too thin on the cap thread area for the cap to be able to hold its grip.

As Blaine just mentioned, some newer cars are using the closed system again, so somebody must know how to make a plastic jeep bottle that holds up for a reasonable amount of time. Even the craked one I just replaced which is now 4 years old, still had a solid seal on the cap and bottle treads even after 4 years.

So once again, this is a call mostly for recent, 87-90 Jeep, plastic bottle and cap experience with various brands and vendors, ONLY, PLEASE. Not looking for modification options like open system swaps in this thread, as that has been well covered in several other threads.

I want to know who makes the best Jeep PLASTIC bottle, who sells it, and why theirs is the best. Not really interested in the metal tank upgrade either as it is not see through, but thanks for posting it, as others might read this later on and want to try that route. Also, for the price of the metal tank one could buy an open system radiator.
 
outlander said:
I don't know why you guys insist on fawking with the closed system.....I got so damn tired of that stupid bottle that I converted to open.

I guess some of us just have not fawked with ours enough yet. :laugh3:
 
eco mike,purchased last august,doesn't seem as thick as oem, I saw one in a volvo I serviced that looks like it would work with a little playing around, it was spherical and thick! volume might be a concern though.
 
Moroso makes an aluminum tank that will work perfectly for replacing the plastic pain in the butt tank...
 
Ecomike,
I had gone through three tanks in about 2 years. They were from Quadratech and 4WDH both companies sell the same tank I think. The caps leaking was the reason for the changes of each tank. I was thinking I had cross threaded them but now have decided they were defectively made.
I switched over to the aluminum tank sold by Mac's Radiator and though it has only now been a couple of months (knock on wood) no problems. The tank from Mac seems a well made alternative to the junk we can find at our regular suppliers. Maybe these plastic tanks are made in China like everything else these days. BTW we had a thread about cap pressures awhile back and I put an 18# cap on the Mac's tank and again no problems. We have had several days in the mid to upper 90s and not one second of overheating or one drop of overflow either.
 
It has been my experience that as it was stated earlier in the thread the bottles some times deform and cause the leak at the cap. I have tried autozone, napa, kragen and ebay bottles and they all were identical and eventually all failed in the same way. I now have one on I got from my parts supplier and it not only is thicker than the others but has lasted over a year when the others failed any where from a month to 6 months from purchase and it was less expensive to boot.
 
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