Friday, April 30 On trip to Irvine, it became apparent to me that my Jeep engine was overheating too much to ignore.
My temperature gauge has been dead for years, because of a failed voltage regulator in the fuel gauge that supplies both of them.
Wednesday, May 5. Went to Pep Boys, bought a bunch of stuff. A nice mechanical water temp gauge. Prestone flush kit, consisting of tee fitting that goes in the heater hose for hooking up to garden hose, and a cheesy tube to divert the overflow a couple of inches away in a chosen direction. Bottle of flush chemical, label says it has sodium citrate in it. Bottle of water pump lubricant and three bottles of antifreeze. Cheesy Prestone hydrometer.
Installed the temp gauge in a fitting in the water passages in the intake manifold that, for some odd reason, I believed was where it was supposed to go. Readings very squirrely.
Modified the Prestone overflow tube by adding a hose fitting, so with a second garden hose I can route the overflow someplace inoffensive instead of dumping it on my shoes.
Thursday, May 6. Figured out that I had hooked up the new gauge wrong. The fitting on the manifold is the wrong place. The right place to connect it is on the block like God intended it. The gauge sensor is to big to fit there. Too bad, and it was such a great fit in the wrong place. Out it comes, and again I have no temperature gauge.
Installed Prestone flush kit. Prestone says to put the tee in the upper heater hose, where it comes out of the top of the engine. Problem is, my heater hose connects on the radiator side of the thermostat, while they assume it connects on the engine side. If I connect it on top, I will be flushing nothing but the top radiator tank. I connect it in the bottom heater hose. That way, the water at least has to go through either the heater core or the radiator core to get out.
Drained the radiator. Contents looking like swamp water, more brown than green. Hydrometer says there's not much antifreeze in it.
Flushed with water for a while.
Closed it up, added the flush chemical. Drove around the block until hot, then let it sit until cool. Drained.
Flushed with water again. Discovered that by squeezing the heater hose shut with vice grip pliers I could make sure the water went both ways, heater and radiator. Good. Unfortunately, as the thermostat was closed, I suspect not much flushing happened in the block water passages. I guess a fair amount of rust and/or sludge has come out. but I don't know what to compare against. Water coming out is clear.
Filled with good antifreeze and water pump lubricant. The passenger compartment heater, which has been almost useless for years, is now putting out heat, so at least I did that much good. Jeep still overheats.
(H) relates the story of a vehicle having the same sort of problem, cured by replacing an old tired radiator cap with one that hold the proper pressure. (H) and I make a late night shopping run to Pep Boys for a radiator cap and the Despot for some water fittings.
Friday, May 7. Hooked up pressure gauge to the Prestone flush port. On a test drive, old radiator cap blows off at 10 PSI. Installed new radiator cap. New radiator cap blows off at 16 PSI, matching spec. Jeep still overheats.
(H) finally talks me in to doing the compression check, to see if I have a blown head gasket. Cyl PSI PSI (each cylinder checked twice.) 1 158 158 2 173 173 3 158 160 4 165 163 5 163 163 6 150 156
We concluded no blown head gasket.
Talked to (D). He believes I need more flushing of the block water passages. And what else is there to consider? That and the water pump. So, I thing the water pump has to come off for inspection at least, and if it's off then maybe it is a dumb idea to not put a new one on even if it looks good. When it is off, that would be the time to flush the block. I don't know yet what kind of rig up I can use to flush the block.