Well... it has been a few years since I did an update on the Jeep. Haven't driven it a ton, since the pandemic and working from home 100%. Did a few trips to the desert and to Prescott, AZ area. A couple months back we were taking a trip back to see friends in Prescott Valley, AZ area and it was during a heatwave in SoCal. We were loaded up and headed out of town when we got about 40 miles or so on I-8, just starting into the mountain grades. Water temp was up to 233* and knowing we hadn't hit any of the steep areas or the desert heat yet, we turned around and swapped over to our RAV4. Disappointed as we wanted to do some wheeling over in AZ. Well anyone who has owned an XJ knows they border on just enough cooling when new and as they get age on the systems, they can start to run hot. Luckily I hadn't had any real issues until this trip. Ordered parts and set out to update the cooling system.
Water pump was replaced when the engine was, about 30K back. No leaks so I keep that but replaced the radiator, all hoses, t-stat and coolant. After researching, I found the Mishimoto all aluminum radiator seemed to be the hot ticket for XJ's. It has about 50% more cooling capacity and I liked getting rid of the plastic tanks. Had the past Friday off and set out to get everything installed. Luckily having watched a number of YouTube videos of the install, I knew what I could expect. The hardest part of the install was removing the lower trans cooler line. It is a "quick connect" type fitting and I did not own the tool for removing this. After some searching I found the tool folks were using but it didn't seem to work. Wanting to get the radiator out, I broke off that hard line from the radiator so I could work on getting the end out. After looking at it a number of times, it seemed like it wasn't engaging far enough to release the 4 clips. It seems the stepped neck on the tool (which really wasn't for the Jeep fitting) was too long. A few hits with the grinder and bam, it worked perfectly. I did need to notch the lower corner of the inner fender well, as being a thicker end housing, the line sat back too much and wouldn't allow the radiator to line up correctly (saw this issue in the videos, so kind of expected it). A quick notch of that and some paint, everything fit perfectly. Replaced all of the other items and filled it up.
Been our driving it a few times and hasn't broken 200* and sits around 195-198*. Before it ran about 205-210* and in the heat and stopped, 220*. If anything, it's running a little cool (I am running a 195* t-stat, as stock) but that gives me a lot of overhead. Here area few pics.
Before tearing things apart (note plastic fill tube)
Pulled out
Modified tool, notice the step flange was ground to about 1/16". Other side shows how long the flange was. That was the end of the tube I broke off, for better access to the line.
Aluminum goodness right there.
All back together. Other than the fill tube being aluminum, you wouldn't really know a difference by looking.