Blew the radiator in my TJ on the way home

farrier

farrier

Member
Was a great day on the wol new years run, nothing broke, no flats head home from barstow this morning, got within 15 miles of home and poof dam pos radiator the po had put in blew the seam on the top tank, it's a be cool aluminum and this is the second issue with it we've had so looking for ideas about replacing it, either another alum and electric fan setup or go back to stock oem or something in the middle
 
Damn that sucks. At least you were that close to home. Ironic how it always happens. Kinda like when you have to use the bathroom at the start of a drive home. Everything is fine until your around the corner then it's "I can't get my keys into the lock fast enough"...haha. I'm not sure on recommendations but in my old Titan I picked one up from O'reilly. Came with a lifetime warranty which I used within a week of installing it..haha. The replacement was in there for four years without any problems though. Won't help you in the middle of BFE but it's a nice piece of mind.

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lol yeah it's weird how it's always at the end, sad part is this is supposed to a good radiator even, it's a becool made in america but the only cool part about it is the made in america, sure isn't the coolant lmao
 
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I have an aluminum radiator. It was fairly cheap and honestly it doesn’t keep my jeep in the summer near as cool as I would like. I changed the coolant and put a colder thermostat in. I am thinking of switching to an electric fan. What are other people running?


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I have three jeeps with fans...while hemi's have a tendency to run hot, I never had a coolant issue...now transmission temps...that's another thing...

Really sorry you had problems with your radiator, but glad it didn't happen on the trail...and enjoyed talking to you as well
 
yeah was real glad it waited till we got home this time, first time was a bottom seam issue and was on the trail, thats kind of why i'm looking to change brands, when it works it works good even with just a 16 inch electric fan with no shroud but this poof hiss action gets tiring lol, was nice meeting and talking to you and your jeep on this trip, being a bit older it was nice hearing a exhaust note that actually sounded old school :yup:
 
Dam, that sucks.... your Jeep ran and looked great all day... was a pleasure trailing with you guys... good luck getting it fixed.
 
Well decided to go old school on the replacement https://www.amazon.com/CSF-RADIATOR-2578-87-04-WRANGLER/dp/B000CFPHG0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516248003&sr=8-1&keywords=CSF+2578 .
Now for the next hard part of it, the previous owner stripped out the oem fan, shroud, etc and replaced it with a electric which if you were on the last trip you more than likely heard it turn on or it causing static on any radio in range of it, so either stay with electric which is already wired and temp set or rip all that out and replace everything from water pump out including hoses which got wacked up to put in the temp sensors with new parts. If we do the go back to the mechanical setup I'm planning on doing the fan/clutch upgrade using the 5.0 ford clutch and 9 blade fan (reason for new water pump) so if you all have any pro's or cons for which ever I would like to hear them.
 
Personally, I would be hesitant about switching to an electric fan. The OEM fan (with properly working clutch) moves a lot more air than an electric unit is capable of.
 
Ok to update this whole thing, there ended up another change of plans which so far is working out good, we went ahead and returned the whole cooling system back to oem except for the fan blade which couldn't be found so went with a 6 blade flexlite all steel fan.
That worked out fine since we used the heavier duty fan clutch for the auto trans so all is good, the new mopar radiator is the upgraded one they switched to in 2004 ( I think) which has the 1 1/4 inch tubes. The worst part of the whole thing was getting all the oem bolts and screws to replace what the shop had used to put the pos setup in it.
 
Actually we restored the entire cooling system back to stock, actual mopar radiator, the heavy duty clutch and 6 blade steel fan from flex lite, new water pump because we were there anyway, same with new t-stat, hoses etc, and all t6he issues turned out to be the 1 thing we didn't replace which was the tube for the recovery bottle, the rubber hose was plugged in the middle by about a 4 inch plug of who knows what so the pressure and stuff wasn't venting properly, the entire restore cost about 100 less than a good alum radiator by it's self
 
farrier said:
Actually we restored the entire cooling system back to stock, actual mopar radiator, the heavy duty clutch and 6 blade steel fan from flex lite, new water pump because we were there anyway, same with new t-stat, hoses etc, and all t6he issues turned out to be the 1 thing we didn't replace which was the tube for the recovery bottle, the rubber hose was plugged in the middle by about a 4 inch plug of who knows what so the pressure and stuff wasn't venting properly, the entire restore cost about 100 less than a good alum radiator by it's self
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Glad to hear you got it all sorted out. 🍻

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Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
 
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