Ep. 17 I Tried Every Jeep Cherokee XJ Overheating Fix for 13 Years!

**Jeep Cherokee XJ Overheating Problems – My Full Story & Fixes Tried | XJ Talk Show** In this classic episode of the Jeep Cherokee XJ Talk Show, Tony shares his personal 13-year battle with overheating on his 1998 Jeep Cherokee XJ. From the very first water pump failure on the highway to years of chasing the “heat creep” at highway speeds, this is a detailed, real-world account of one of the most common XJ issues. ### What You’ll Learn: – Why XJs run hot at idle, in traffic, and especially on the highway – Water pump failures, warped heads, cracked plastic radiator tanks – All the mods and parts Tony tried: 3-core radiator, high-flow water pump (FlowKooler), 180° thermostat, heavy-duty Grand Cherokee fan clutch, transmission cooler, gears (4.56), hood cowl scoop, and more – The surprising discovery that running the electric fan at highway speeds helped significantly – Airflow tips: factory skid plate/air dam, moving the trans cooler, and plans for a big 3-fan electric setup (4,600 CFM) – Real talk on what worked, what didn’t, and lessons learned the hard (and expensive) way Whether you’re dealing with your own XJ running hot or just love classic Jeep Cherokee tech talk, this episode is packed with practical advice from years of ownership and wrenching. **Timestamps:** 00:00:00 Show Introduction and Sponsor Message 00:02:43 Listener Call‑In Information 00:03:39 Contest Overview and Voting Details 00:06:42 Detours A‑Pillar Light Mount Contest & Sticker Sale 00:11:27 Jeep Overheating Issue Introduction 00:14:16 Water Pump Failure and Repair Cost 00:16:13 Radiator Failure and Replacement Experience 00:18:36 Plastic Radiator Tank Crack and Costs 00:19:09 Early Overheating Episodes and Lessons Learned 00:20:54 Multiple Water Pump Replacements and Expenses 00:23:14 Problem Diagnosis and Planning 00:27:26 Tire Upgrade, Transmission Cooler, and Gear Changes 00:30:50 Aggressive Troubleshooting and Airflow Diagnosis 00:35:04 Fan Upgrade Attempts Yield No Improvement 00:36:54 Heavy‑Duty Fan Clutch Installation 00:39:26 Partial Improvements but Heat Creep Persists 00:41:17 Electric Fan Bypass Test Shows Cooling Benefit 00:42:28 High‑CFM Fan Discussion and Community Feedback 00:44:37 Varied Experiences Among Jeep Owners 00:45:07 Recent Highway Run and Missing Engine Mat 00:46:28 Skid Plate Restoration and Lift Effects 00:48:09 Airflow Under Jeep vs Radiator Efficiency 00:48:52 Removing Front Accessories to Improve Cooling 00:50:26 Relocating Transmission Cooler Out of Airflow 00:51:55 Future Plan: Fan on Cooler and High CFM 00:52:35 Avoiding Triple‑Core Radiator, Performance Gains 00:56:14 Questions, Fuel System Concerns, and Further Tests 01:01:37 Propane Conversion Idea and Light Mount Reminder 01:02:57 Detours Light Mount Contest Entry Details 01:05:11 Contest Entry Cost Explanation and Thanks 01:06:35 Cooling System Design Flaw Discussion 01:08:03 Upcoming Detours Light Mount Winner Announcement 01:08:33 Closing Remarks and Sign‑Off **Links:** – Visit the original site: https://xjtalk.com (or current Jeep Talk Show site) – Subscribe for more Jeep Cherokee XJ content, builds, interviews & tech! If you’re fighting the XJ overheating gremlin, drop your setup and symptoms in the comments — year, lift, tires, mods, etc. Let’s help each other out! #JeepCherokee #XJ #JeepOverheating #XJTalk #JeepBuild #4×4 #Offroad #JeepLife Visit our website: https://jeeptalkshow.com/ Watch/Listen on Spotify https://jeeptalkshow.com/spotify Join our Discord Server: https://jeeptalkshow.com/discord Subscribe to our newsletter: https://jeeptalkshow.com/newsletter Help Support the show via Patreon: https://jeeptalkshow.com/patreon

Episode Transcript

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(I Catch You At The Top Show) It’s- it’s on. (Now) (Now) (One Second)

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(One Second) (One Second) (One Second) (One Second) (One Second) (One Second) (One Second) (One Second) Good evening boys and girls. (Kiss) And um… Reani and uh… Bear. Brian. Glad to have you guys. Looks like we’ve had a few more people join in. Got uh… three guests.

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My name’s Tony, motoroy on XJTalk.com. And this show, Jeep Cherokee XJTalk.com show is brought to you by XJTalk.com. The Jeep Cherokee website. The premier Jeep Cherokee website. Growing by leaps and bounds every day.

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In fact, we’ve got a couple of uh… contests going on that I’m gonna talk to you about here in just a few minutes.

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Tonight we’re gonna be talking about um…

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your Jeep Cherokee running hot. Or even overheating.

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I’m going to relay to you the experiences that I’ve gone through. And the life cycle of my Jeep, which I guess is around 13 years now. Because uh… my wife and I bought that Jeep brand new. So you should uh… find this interesting. Even if you haven’t had any uh… overheating problems. But I would find that hard to believe. Because that’s kind of the weak point on the Jeep Cherokee. But we’ll get to that in just a minute.

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(Music)

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This segment sponsored by 4wheelingplus.com. Do you want a Jeep? Do you need help getting it up? Check out 4wheelingplus.com for great deals on Jeep lift kits. That’s the number 4 Wheeling Plus PLUS.com.

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XJtalk.com.

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It’s where you go when you’re not off road.

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Hey I just wanted to tell you about XJtalk.com. It’s a great site. There’s no bashing. Everybody’s nice and friendly. Great place to be.

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Do you have questions or comments that you would like played on the air? We’ve set up voicemail just for that purpose. All you have to do is call 530-675-4102. Just leave your name, your location, and your question or comment. Chances are good it’ll get played on the air. That number again is 530-675-4102. We look forward to hearing from you today.

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Okay, well I think there are several people interested in the contest that we have going on. The individuals that for the performance distributors FireWireKit 4.0 giveaway, those individuals that called in questions, called or sent in questions or promos, well the initial voting is over and it looks like for the promo that Dalton 4×4 got 7 votes, Weldman got 13, and Orderedean got 4. Orderedean if you recall is in Mongolia. And he sent in his promo from that country and he was good enough to speak our language,

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which I’m sure improved his chances of winning. And there was only three promos and I really appreciate them. In fact, you’ll be hearing them here on the show from time to time and I hope that you guys will do more promos for the show. It’s great to have things to play on the show and also gives you an opportunity to say, “Hey, that’s me.”

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Now for the question part of it, we had a lot more entries. They were easier to think of.

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And we have a tie. So it wasn’t something that I had anticipated, but we have a tie between Weldman with 3 votes and Orderedean with 3 votes. So before we have the vote between the promos and the questions, we’re going to have to have another vote, a vote off, for the two questions that have tied. So I’ll be putting up a post later today or tomorrow so that you can vote on which question was the best. And of course, if Weldman wins that one, then there will not be a follow-up vote. He will have won the Performance Firewire distributor kit.

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So get in there and vote. It’s really easy to vote. All you need to do is be an xjtalk.com member. And at the very top of each page will be a notice section. And as long as you haven’t closed it, you will see a line up there that says, as soon as I get to it, “Performance distributor Firewire 4.0 kit giveaway, voting in progress.” And then it says, “Vote best promo, vote best question.” That’ll be a little different. It will just say, “Vote best question,” probably something like “tiebreaker” or something. So I’ll be changing that soon. But the voting has ended for the Performance Distributors Firewire kit 4.0. And so far, at this point Weldman with 13 votes has won the promo. And we have a tie between Weldman and Orderedine with three votes each for the question.

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So on our other giveaway is the quite lovely

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Detours A-pillar Light Mount. It does not include the lights. So don’t give me no

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about it. It’s just the mounts. So what we’re doing there is we’re selling–it’s like a raffle. We’re selling $2 tickets. And if you are a super member subscriber, you get one free entry. And several people have taken advantage of that, our super members, of course. So I’ve put up our current number of entries. And there’s not very many entries. So if you haven’t gone to also at the top of the page where it says, “Detours A-pillar Light Mount Contest,” and then “Contest Details,” if you just click on “Contest Details,” you can go and enter the contest. It’s $2 per chance. And you pay through PayPal. So just go in,

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put in your chance to win. And, I mean, gosh, I mean, what do we have?

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We only have

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4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. We have 11 entries right now.

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So some of the individuals have 2 and 3 entries apiece. But if you just look at the odds, you

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know, it’s like a 1 in 11 chance to win. So that’s, gosh, what is that? Like 10%?

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It must be 10%.

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Just looking here at the chat room, we’ve got a few more people who have shown up.

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Several guests. Hello, guests. It’s pretty easy to sign up with Ustream to get an account. It’s free. And if you get an account, you can talk in the chat room, or at least chat in the chat room.

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So that’s our 2 contests. The Performance Distributed Spire Work contest is coming to a close very soon, probably within the next week, possibly less, depending on how this tiebreaker turns out.

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So very anxious to see who’s going to win that. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully the winner will take some pictures after installing the

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firework kit and also 2 for the A-pillars. Oh, that was the other thing I wanted to mention. The A-pillar Detours, A-pillar Light Mounts, the contest will be over next Tuesday, March 29th.

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So you need to get your entries in before then. You have up to midnight on the 29th. That’s next Tuesday. And then on the show, next week, we’re going to pick the winner. So it’ll just be a random drawing. And whoever’s name is picked, they’re picked. And that’s who will get the A-pillar Mounts. And it will be as simple as me placing an order with detours. And then detours, Mark, will ship that straight to you. So it should go pretty quick, since it’s not depending on me shipping it. Because I’m kind of slow in getting that stuff done, as any of you that have waited for the coveted XJTalk stickers have found out. And speaking of that, the XJTalk stickers, I have found a local vendor. I was going to call him last week to see about getting some samples made and didn’t get a chance to. He was closed Friday and Saturday. So I still got a call this week, but it looks like we should have some XJTalk stickers very soon. Those are available for purchase now. Several people have already purchased them. There is a special deal for past XJTalk donors and certainly for our Super Subscribers. So if you haven’t ordered your sticker yet, get in there and order them. The stickers are $7 apiece, and that includes shipping.

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Actually, if you order it, it gives me a better idea about how many to order from this guy. So if you’re thinking about getting one, get your order in. That’s on the website. I didn’t think about it before the show, so I don’t have the information. But you can get me on the site and ask me or probably just find it. Oh, actually, it’s up at the notices. It says, “XJTalk stickers are available for order.” Click here. So you just got to click that and it will take you to the right area. And again, just use PayPal to pay your $7 or your $1 or your $2 or whatever it is, depending on what your membership status is.

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So tonight’s subject is going to be about the Jeep overheating.

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I know that I’ve heard several people complain about their Jeeps running hot at idle in traffic, off-road, especially in high-torque, high-horsepower environments, you know, climbing or crawling through things like mud. And it seems to be a very common issue. Not everybody has it, but it does seem to be a very common issue with a Jeep Cherokee. Now, mine was no different. I bought my Jeep Cherokee, I guess it was 1998,

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because that’s the year of the Jeep. And it was fine, you know, it was a stock configuration, obviously. And it was fine for about two years, maybe two and a half or so. And then one day I was coming home down I-10, which is the highway here close to the house,

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and I was driving 70, 80 miles an hour, and I noticed it was running hot. Of course, it had never run hot before. And I thought, well, this is strange, it must be low on water, maybe I have a leak. Something’s causing it to not cool properly. So I exited I-10, got on the feeder road, pulled over into a parking lot, and it was acting kind of weird because it would go to the– it got up to the second hash mark after the 210, which was right at the edge of the red. So to me that meant it’s getting really hot, and I need to be very careful with it, but it’s not in the red, it’s at the edge of the red, so it should be fine. But I still got off the highway. And as I was getting off the highway, the needle just dropped down all of a sudden, down to the next hash mark down. And I thought, okay, good, well, this is great because I was afraid it was going to overheat. So I went on a little further, and then it kicked back up. And then you could smell the hot from the engine, and I think it actually started acting up. It’s running. It wasn’t running properly. So I knew those warning signs, so I pulled over into a parking lot and turned it off and let it sit. And of course, I got out and looked to see if there was any water leaking and nothing. It was, you know, just as it was, as I got it from the showroom floor. So I let it cool off a little bit, started it. It didn’t run very well,

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and it straightened up. It was hot. Of course, you know, when you turn it off, you’re stopping the cooling system. So it kind of has a tendency, the pressure increases, and things have a tendency to get hotter whenever you turn it off. Anyway, I babied it all the way home. At the time, I was in a pretty good paying IT position, and I really didn’t. I had worked on vehicles a lot whenever I first started driving when I was like 16, 17, 18.

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I didn’t know the Jeep. I had never worked on it, and I wasn’t really looking forward to doing anything to it. And also, too, I was probably very busy at work. So instead of going through the trouble of, you know, finding out exactly what the problem was, I just took it down to a local shop.

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Well, they found the problem. It was the water pump. The plastic fins that Chrysler had on the water pump were gone. It looked like somebody had just chewed them off.

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The coolant looked like a kind of a reddish mud color.

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Now, keep in mind, I probably had put some water in the overflow. Maybe I had put some in the radiator. But, you know, this thing had been really nothing. I had done nothing to it except drive it like a bat out of

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And it was just a very tough vehicle.

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So I was a little surprised at how bad that water pump had come apart like that, basically. So they said, well, you know, we think that you may have warped the head, which I was a little surprised because I wasn’t driving it around, or at least according to the gauge, I wasn’t driving it around with it being overheated. So they wanted to check it out, and they said, yeah, the head’s warped, so we need to send the head off to have it checked and milled. And if it just has to be milled, then, you know, it’s only $250 or something like that. And I’m like, okay, okay. Anyway, all told, when it was all said and done, it was $950 to repair the bad water pump.

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So, got it back. I was a little concerned about them having the head off and putting it back on properly and the Jeep actually performing like it had before. But they did a very good job.

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I think they charged me way too much for it, but that’s fine. They did a very good job, and if I had wanted to, I could have got the tools and done it all myself. But I didn’t, so I paid the $950.

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About two months after that, I started having a heating problem. Actually, I think I noticed the coolant was leaking out of somewhere around the front of the vehicle.

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And I looked, and it looked like it was coming from the radiator.

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So, I called the shop that had done the repair and told them, I think I may have even taken it up there. And they said, yeah, the radiator has plastic tanks. So, I was confused because I’m like, I don’t understand. What do you mean plastic? Part of the radiator is plastic? He goes, yeah, the tanks at the end, the ends, both ends of the radiator, that’s plastic. I said, it gets really hot, doesn’t it? I mean, I already knew how hot the hood got on the silly thing. He says, yeah. And I said, that kind of– but why would the factory do that?

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He goes, I don’t know, but that’s what it is. And they crack. When you have that problem, that overheating, it stressed the tank, and it’s probably what cracked it, and you need to probably just replace it because they don’t repair plastic tanks.

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So, I said, OK, how much is that? He goes, well, to be honest with you, we don’t sell the radiators, so all we would do is go to our radiator shop and have them do it, and then we would charge you more for what they did and charge us. If you want to, I’ll just give you the name of the place, and you can go down there. I guess they were feeling bad about the 950.

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Probably not, but anyway, that’s what I did. And I prefer that anyway. I would rather go to a radiator shop and also to talk to the individuals and see what they have. And, you know, I went down there, they pulled the radiator out, stuck it in the tank, and, yeah, it’s a cracked tank. And I said, OK, well, you can’t– and I really thought, you know, $75 or something, I was going to get it repaired, but no, it was a cracked plastic tank. So I said, well, as far as replacement, what do you got? He goes, well, we can put all metal. Actually, I think they probably said they had a plastic thing, and I didn’t want a plastic. I said, what do you have that’s all metal? And he says, well, we have an all metal tank for 225.

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So I had not looked at anything, certainly nothing on the Internet. I hadn’t looked anything up. Of course, the Internet was very new back then, because I guess that would have been around 2000–2001. I guess it was around 2000 when all this was going on. And there wasn’t as many things on the Internet as there are now. Anyway, so 225, they put a new all metal, two core radiator in the Jeep, and I was off. So what is that, about $1,100, just because the fins on the factory water pump went out.

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And that was my first clue. I mean, it always ran just a hair above, I’m sorry, hair below 210, and it never moved from there. And I’m pretty good at scanning the gauges, so I don’t think that it had been hotter than that when I was going down 910. And I think I caught it pretty quick. And I thought I had done it right where I wasn’t going to cause any damage, but,

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well, I would be a little surprised if I warped the head, unless the gauge was lying to me.

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You know, maybe you guys have a better idea about how far you can drive whenever–it’s not in the red, but it’s on the edge of the red.

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It did go past that point a couple of times, but it would go back down. So, you know, I kept going. I tried to get, you know, more air. Of course, I didn’t know what the problem was at the time. If I had known that the fins on the water pump were bad, then I probably wouldn’t have tried that. So anyway, that was my first overheating issues with the Cherokee. And like I said, that was like two or three years into the initial ownership of it. And it was brand new when I bought it.

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So I guess off and on I would have issues

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over the years. And I went through about five, I think, total water pumps.

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I remember one year on Father’s Day, I replaced a water pump. And then exactly–well, I don’t know if Father’s Day is the same day of her year, but exactly–I want to say exactly–about one year later on the following Father’s Day, I replaced the water pump again. Now these were the, you know, the 30, $35 water pumps from O’Reilly’s.

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And I don’t think I got rebuilt, especially after going through all that

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of having to replace it. So I’m sure I was getting the new ones. And had I known that I would be replacing them that often, I would have kept the receipt and got a free one.

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But going through the trouble of putting those things on, you know, they don’t reimburse you for that hour, two hours, whatever it takes to change that out. Plus, Father’s Day is in the summer, so it’s even more fun to work on the Jeep whenever it’s really hot outside. So anyway, I’ve gone through by the total of five water pumps, counting that first one. And the one I’ve had on there now for, I guess, over a year is the Flow Cooler high-volume water pump. I was looking at the Hesco, but it was just too

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expensive. There’s just no way I was going to put a $250, $300 water pump on my Jeep.

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And I didn’t see a lot of difference between the two.

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So anyway, I’m getting, well, this is a while back, too, because keep in mind, a guy in the chat room, East Texas Hunter, says $35 bid God, that’s cheap. That was 2003, 2004. So that was a few years ago when I was getting that. And of course, I could be remembering wrong, but I don’t think it was much more than that. I don’t think it was 60 or anything. I don’t think it was 40. It seems like it was around 35 or so. But anyway, at any rate, I’m getting ahead of myself. So I knew that during the summertime, I would have the biggest problem. And of course, it makes sense. The air temperature is the hottest. The humidity is high. And the very narrow nose of the Jeep Cherokee is just not a really good surface area, especially to put fans behind the radiator to get the air flow through there at low speed. So just like most of the Jeeps, at idle and traffic, it would start to warm up. If I wasn’t running the air conditioner, the electric fan, auxiliary fan would come on. And certainly that would help the situation, the overheating situation. But ever so often, it would have a problem. And I would have to add some water. I never really saw a leak, but I noticed I could add water, and then it would go back to acting normal. And I guess about every three months or so, I’d have to put some water in it. And this went on for years, and I lifted the Jeep. I guess that was about

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three and a half years ago. That was October of 2007, I believe. I was talking to Matt the other day on Facebook, and we were talking about tires. And I was trying to remember how long it had been since I had bought the BFG32s that I have.

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And it was going right on three and a half years. I’ll probably get four years out of those tires, which I think is pretty good. I do need to check them to make sure how far down they are. He was telling me about how to check to see how low they are, and with the little hash marks and stuff on it that I wasn’t familiar with. But anyway, so about three and a half years ago, I put a four and a half of Rough Country four and a half inch lift. And on that same day that the kit was installed, I took it over to NTB. I had already purchased the wheels and tires. So I just drove it over to NTB with the wheels and tires, and they mounted them, balanced them, and put them on the Jeep. And about,

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I don’t know, as soon as I noticed it, I mean, I was always keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge after that initial over-tire. So that was a good heating problem.

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I kind of gradually over time noticed it was running a little hot.

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And it only seemed to do it, I mean, it had the same issue at idle and so on and so forth. But going down the highway at 70, 80 miles an hour, it would kind of have what I called was a heat creep. Because it would go up to the 210, and then you go down the road another five miles or so. And then it would be a little over 210, another five miles, it would be a little further on, further on. And it would actually get to that first hash mark past 210.

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At the time, I thought that, you know, that was a linear scale, and it’s not. That first hash mark, at least according to the ODB OBD2 interface, that next hash mark is around 240, 245, really hot. A lot hotter than what I thought it was based on the interval of hash, the intervals that the hash marks were.

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So I was, needless to say, I was very concerned because I understand that the transmission coolant is going to the radiator. Certainly the engine, the whole vehicle would smell hot. And even though it wasn’t overheating, I was still nervous because of the $950 that I had spent just, you know, several years earlier. And I did not want to be in that position again, especially since my job situation had changed, and I wasn’t making the same amount of money that I had been making before.

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So I needed to get this thing fixed. I needed to figure out what the problem was and resolve it. Now, initially I thought, well, I’ve put bigger tires. You know, I spoke with people, and initially the conversation was, well, bigger tires, there’s more stress on the transmission. It’s probably slipping more than what it had slipped before because of the additional weight of the vehicle because of the tires, and of course making the tires turn and blah, blah, blah, blah. So the thought was, get a transmission cooler. So that’s what I did. I got a BN, I always say this wrong, B&M. Yeah, B&M. I always want to say B-N-W, like A-N-W root beer. But anyway, the B&M 13,000 BTU transmission cooler.

[00:28:10:28 – 00:28:19:14]
Now, my Jeep has the upcountry package, so it already has a factory transmission cooler on it.

[00:28:19:14 – 00:28:37:25]
So I just put the 13K transmission cooler in series. So it was going, the transmission line would go to the radiator, and then it would go to the factory transmission cooler, and then it went to the B&W transmission cooler, which was probably twice the surface area.

[00:28:37:25 – 00:29:04:01]
And then I ran that out back to the transmission. And I put the transmission cooler in front of the condenser, and I went ahead and put it on the side of the mechanical fan because, you know, to me that made the most sense because the mechanical fan was larger and should pull more air through there. So if you’re going to put some extra heat-generating device in front of your Jeep, put it in front of the fan that pulls the most air.

[00:29:04:01 – 00:29:08:10]
So that’s what I did. I did not resolve the issue.

[00:29:10:02 – 00:29:20:19]
I don’t think it made it any worse, or at least it wasn’t noticeably worse, but it did not resolve the issue. I have no doubt that the transmission probably ran cooler.

[00:29:22:03 – 00:29:33:15]
I would have, I still want to, and I haven’t done so. I should have got a transmission temperature gauge so I could see exactly how hot or cold it was running.

[00:29:33:15 – 00:29:42:28]
I did notice that during the winter time, like when it was 30 degrees out, the transmission would act funny. And I’m sure it was because it was too cold.

[00:29:43:28 – 00:29:45:03]
I’m sure it would say it was too

[00:29:45:03 – 00:29:45:21]
cold.

[00:29:46:26 – 00:30:03:12]
It took it a little while for it to warm up, and then once it was warmed up it was, it didn’t act weird. And that was a number of years ago, so I don’t think it’s actually a transmission problem. I think it was just, the transmission fluid was just, you know, it was kind of having a hard time with it because it wasn’t warming up very quickly.

[00:30:03:12 – 00:30:06:23]
Yeah, 30 degrees was very cold in Texas.

[00:30:06:23 – 00:30:17:04]
Oh, thanks for joining, Pre-Runner. Kind of a neat treat having you here. Either you’re at home or you’re still at work, not doing something you’re not supposed to do.

[00:30:17:04 – 00:30:50:07]
But glad to have you here anyway. So anyway, put that on there. Didn’t make a difference. But I felt better about the transmission because even with the engine running hot, that probably, I would think, that helped the transmission run cooler. So any damage that I may have been doing by running hot transmission fluid back into the transmission, that should have helped that situation. So I kind of figured I extended the life of the transmission.

[00:30:50:07 – 00:31:46:00]
So I think that it was about maybe two years ago that I got real aggressive about trying to fix this problem. I found that I could get out here on I-10 and drive down about 12 miles. Well, I guess it was 12 miles round trip, so I could drive about 6 miles. And it didn’t matter if it was day or night, raining, dry, cold, hot, etc. If I drove that 6 miles at 75, 80 miles an hour, before I got to where I was going to pull off and turn around and come back, it was running hot. I don’t want to say it was–it wasn’t overheating, but it was running hot. It was doing that past the 210, either at or very close to the next hash mark. So I had a good solid test that I could use.

[00:31:46:00 – 00:32:46:26]
So I can’t remember the order of how I changed things, but basically, the first thing I did was–I do remember this. The first thing I did was I got a new radiator. One thing I had learned with my 72 Nova and my 327, etc., etc., if you want to cool an engine better, put an additional core. Get a transmission with another core. So if it’s a one core, get a two. If it’s a two, get a three. In the Jeep, it was a two core. So I started digging around on the Internet and I found the CSF or CFS. Anyway, that three core radiator, and it was actually something I got from Auto–yeah, Auto Barn. Auto Barn. Which, you know, I wouldn’t think that that would be–you know, Barn wouldn’t be a good place to buy anything unless it’s hay or livestock. But anyway, they–real good people–treated me well.

[00:32:48:05 – 00:32:51:11]
And I think–I

[00:32:51:11 – 00:32:54:12]
can’t remember. Something happened to that first one.

[00:32:55:13 – 00:33:10:00]
I think I got a hole rubbed in it. It was–yeah, the electric fan rubbed a hole in it and they warranted it for me. They sent me another one, which I thought was really nice. I didn’t know what the problem was at the time.

[00:33:11:02 – 00:33:27:13]
But they were very nice to take care of that and it really wasn’t their fault. It was something–a modification they needed to do to the electric fan to keep it from rubbing on the fins. But anyway, put the three core in there and I was certain–certain–that that would fix it.

[00:33:27:13 – 00:33:32:10]
It made it better, but it did not fix it. It still ran hot.

[00:33:32:10 – 00:33:35:23]
So then I got a lot more aggressive.

[00:33:37:04 – 00:34:16:25]
Actually, there was–before I go too far, back up a little bit. I was having issues with it running hot and also, too, it was very doggy going up overpasses and so on and so forth. So it had been mentioned–I think it was on NAXJA–that they had said, “Well, your gears are wrong.” You know, with those 32-inch tires, the 355 gears that you have and the differentials is not going to be good. It’s going to hurt your gas mileage and it’s going to make that engine work harder. And if the engine’s working harder, then it’s going to generate more heat. It made sense to me and was

[00:34:16:25 – 00:34:50:02]
good excuse to put higher or lower gears in it–hire numeric lower ratio gears. So I got some 456 gears and took it over to the shop and got them installed. And that is probably the thing that made my Jeep the most fun to drive again because it put it back to where it was whenever it was stock, except now it was lifted with big tires. So I was able to make it go accelerate like it accelerated before–probably a little bit better, actually.

[00:34:51:10 – 00:35:12:02]
So anyway, put the gears on it–no change. Still running hot. Now keep in mind, for you folks that say if it’s running hot at highway speeds, which is the problem I’m having, it’s an airflow issue. So keep in mind, this is no modification to the Jeep with the exception of lift and larger tires.

[00:35:12:02 – 00:35:17:02]
The front bumper with the air dam built into it–still there.

[00:35:18:10 – 00:35:19:25]
Nothing in front of the grille.

[00:35:21:10 – 00:35:31:13]
The only thing that was behind the grille was the condenser, the 13K transmission cooler, and of course behind that, the radiator.

[00:35:31:13 – 00:35:37:17]
So running hot on the highway and actually getting up there towards the second hash mark.

[00:35:37:17 – 00:35:46:26]
Now I’ve heard several people were telling me on the website, Nat, N-A-X-J-A, that, you

[00:35:46:26 – 00:35:57:29]
know, don’t worry about it. It’s running hot. It’s not overheating. Don’t worry about it. And then I had some of them say, well, it’s running hot because the gear ratio is too low.

[00:35:57:29 – 00:36:06:04]
You’re turning too many RPMs because at 80 miles an hour, I was turning 3,000 RPMs in overdrive.

[00:36:06:04 – 00:36:12:11]
So I tried driving slower, 65, which I think was closer

[00:36:12:11 – 00:36:24:15]
gosh, what is that? I think it’s 70. It’s about 2,800, so I guess 65 would be close to 26, 2,500 RPM.

[00:36:25:16 – 00:36:30:27]
And it’s a little better. It doesn’t overheat–or I’m sorry, it doesn’t run quite as hot.

[00:36:30:27 – 00:36:37:21]
And so anyway, the summer was coming up and I said, screw this. I’m fixing this.

[00:36:37:21 – 00:38:10:19]
So I did some research and I said, okay, airflow issue, clutch disc–I’m not clutch disc. Clutch for the fan, let’s replace it. So I got a new one. Put it on there. No change. Did some more research. Found out that you could put a heavy-duty, grand Cherokee fan clutch on there. And basically, what it was was it would just engage at a higher–a lower RPM and at more of a percentage of engagement. So basically more airflow. And put that in there. I don’t want to say it did not fix it. There was a slight change. There was a slight improvement. It was a noticeable improvement, but it did not fix it. And the goal here was to get the temperature down less than the needles width below 210 because that’s the way it was from the factory. So then some people had said, well, it’s probably your–it’s probably the temp sensor. Your temp sensor is probably throwing you off. And I’m thinking to myself, well, you know, it runs kind of funny when it gets hot and you feel a loss of power when it gets too hot. And on summertime days, I would notice that. So I was thinking, no, I think it is getting hot. But, you know, I wanted to–I wanted to, you know, take every opportunity to do it right. So for $30 or so, whatever it was, $25, $28, I went and got another temp sensor.

[00:38:10:19 – 00:38:12:14]
And now it was running hotter.

[00:38:12:14 – 00:38:15:15]
So it was actually showing a higher temperature.

[00:38:15:15 – 00:38:48:03]
And then I said enough with this. And I said, what else do I–what else can I throw on here? So I went ahead and replaced the heater hoses, the upper hose, the lower hose. I had already replaced the radiator. I put in a lower thermostat like a 180. I froze my butt off during the winter with that 180 thermostat in there, by the way. And then I started looking at the high flow stuff. So I got a high flow thermostat housing, a high flow thermostat, another 180.

[00:38:48:03 – 00:38:54:03]
I got a–got the high flow water pump, the flow cooler.

[00:38:55:14 – 00:39:06:02]
Put it all on there. And it still ran hot. And mind you, this is with the 180 high flow thermostat. It still ran hot on the highway.

[00:39:06:02 – 00:39:35:17]
Now at idle, in traffic, oh, I just love things. It was a Jim Dandy. Any issue that I had had sitting in traffic or just having the thing sit there idle, not a problem. It was working great, but not on the highway. It had the heat creep. Now it was not going as far over as what it did before. So the modifications that I had made did make an improvement driving down the highway.

[00:39:36:18 – 00:39:44:14]
So I think the next thing I tried was, let’s wire up the–let’s put in the bypass switch for the electric fan.

[00:39:44:14 – 00:39:57:22]
And I guess that really wasn’t so much as trying that. I was building up the Jeep and I wanted to take it off road and I thought that would be a really nice thing to be able to switch that electric fan on while I was off road.

[00:39:57:22 – 00:40:37:12]
So I hooked that up. And one day during the summer, I was coming home and I thought, you know, I wonder what would happen if I turned the air conditioner off. Now you understand that the air conditioner runs the auxiliary fan. When the air conditioner is on, the auxiliary fan comes on. And that’s because there’s more heat being put out in front of the radiator on that condenser. So the air being drawn through is going to be hotter. So you need more airflow and actually surface area to be cooled on that radiator so it can keep up with the additional heat load that you’re putting into the cooling system.

[00:40:38:15 – 00:40:51:01]
So I thought to myself, well, I wonder what would happen if I’m driving down the road at, you know, 2800 RPM with the air conditioner off but with the electric fan on.

[00:40:51:01 – 00:40:55:13]
Let me take that little bit of heat out of the equation.

[00:40:56:14 – 00:41:07:10]
And what I found was, is that first off, I made sure that it was going to run hot. And yeah, it did. It was up there past the 210. Well past the 210. Not to the first hash mark, but well past the 210.

[00:41:09:05 – 00:41:09:08]
So,

[00:41:09:08 – 00:41:32:16]
you know, I verified that yeah, it’s running hot. It’s hot. It’s a hot day and I’m running. I’ve got the heat creep. So, and then I hit the electric, the switch, the bypass for the electric fan. And boy, the temperature just starts coming down. And it got within probably a needle’s width of 210 on the, running, you know, higher than 210.

[00:41:34:10 – 00:41:56:04]
Now I was really impressed with that information. That told me that the amount of heat that it was generating was slightly more than what the cooling system could keep up with. It also told me that what these guys had been telling me, and I’m sure the same thing you guys have told me, that if you run hot at highway speeds, it’s an airflow issue.

[00:41:56:04 – 00:42:10:12]
And it is not a fan problem because running down the highway at 70, 80 miles an hour, your fans are not needed. You know, that’s the same thing that everybody says. And it makes perfect sense.

[00:42:11:15 – 00:42:27:12]
But that’s not what I experienced. I experienced that whenever I had the electric fan on at highway speeds and the air conditioner off, it made a significant noticeable difference in the coolant temperature.

[00:42:27:12 – 00:43:17:04]
So actually, probably six months, eight months ago, I was talking to a vendor on xjtalk.com. And I said, Mark, would this, I think it’s Mark, Mark at Payless, Payless 4×4. And I said, Mark, would it make a difference if I had, you know, like a lot more CFM, a couple other electric fans, maybe a Taurus electric fan and a higher, another high speed fan, not a Taurus wouldn’t fit, but another high speed fan. And he said that, that Taurus and the other fan, I think it was like 3500 3600, whatever it was CFM, he says that’s going to pull more air than what you’re going to be able to force through there going down the highway.

[00:43:17:04 – 00:43:22:08]
So that was contrary to what I had been hearing from everybody else.

[00:43:22:08 – 00:43:53:20]
And I was a little enthused by that because keep in mind, I had done all these things. And I think by this time, I’d also cut the hole in the hood so that I could put in a cowl induction scoop so that it would have a way of letting the air get out the hot air out of the hood and flow back over the Jeep and, you know, maybe get some of that because it’s very hot into the hood, which, by the way, that didn’t fix the problem either, obviously. But all these things had a slight improvement.

[00:43:54:29 – 00:44:15:00]
And again, off road, high torque, air conditioner on, crawling, low gears, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, runs great. I have no overheating issues whatsoever, only on the highway. And I get the heat creep.

[00:44:15:00 – 00:45:06:23]
So that’s where we are today. And one of the reasons why I wanted to go over this is I know that some of you on XJTalk have mentioned that on the website, you have mentioned that, you know, you’ve got 35 inch tires or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you have the same problem on the highway. Now, some of you don’t. I don’t know what the correlation between those that do is and those that don’t, what the correlation is. But I do know that some of you have that and you may just be living with it. Maybe you’ve tried to fix it. You couldn’t and you’ve given up. I refuse to. I’ve built a nice Jeep and it is a station wagon. And I would like to take the family places and I really can’t with the way it is.

[00:45:06:23 – 00:46:00:09]
Now, I did notice here about maybe a month ago now, we were in a situation where the Mustang was down. So we had to take the Jeep on the highway to go pick up the girls at a cousin’s house, probably 20 miles away. And I had to get on the highway and I was driving down the highway. I tried to keep it around 65, 70 miles an hour and it was running around 210, maybe a little warmer than that at times. And the outside air temperature was 70 something degrees. So that was actually an improvement. I don’t know what difference there has been because I haven’t done anything to it since cutting the hole and putting the the cow induction. And I had to put a scoop on it and testing it, of course, and not seeing that that had resolved the issue.

[00:46:00:09 – 00:46:12:19]
So I have plans currently. I was looking at, and you guys were mentioning it here in the chat room, I had been looking at the rubber mat that comes on some of,

[00:46:12:19 – 00:46:27:27]
you know, maybe it was on mine. Maybe they took it off whenever they were replacing the water pump. And that’s why I never saw it. But as far as I know, my 98 did not have the little rubber mat that goes underneath the engine.

[00:46:27:27 – 00:47:21:19]
And then we’re doing some research this week. I thought maybe it was because of having the the upcountry package, which includes skids, factory skids. Maybe it was because I had the front factory skid is the reason why I didn’t have the mat, but several people on on the website had said, had told me no, so and so has a skid and they have a mat. So I think I was talking to, strangely enough, Matt today. And he said that he says, just put your skid back on it, which, which, by the way, this the running hot and everything, I had the factory skid on there. But whenever I put my new detours, custom built bumper on the front, I removed that skid and left it off. And I was trying to counteract some of the weight that I was adding to the front with it in the winch.

[00:47:21:19 – 00:47:47:21]
So I’ve dug it back up. And I’m going to be putting that back on because Matt M.S. Mornberg on Xraytalk.com and several others had mentioned that maybe what the problem I’m experiencing is is a lack of vacuum or a lack of basically keeping the air from flowing. Underneath and on top of the Jeep.

[00:47:47:21 – 00:47:49:22]
Whenever the Jeep was lower,

[00:47:49:22 – 00:47:56:14]
the air dam was, you know, closer to the ground, you know, maybe, I don’t know, 12 inches or less.

[00:47:56:14 – 00:48:08:19]
And and then when I lifted it, it was seven inches higher because the tires and the four and a half inch lift lifted the body a total of seven inches.

[00:48:08:19 – 00:48:19:28]
So maybe that allowed more airflow under the Jeep. And if more air is going under the Jeep and over the Jeep, that means less air is going through the radiator.

[00:48:19:28 – 00:48:29:09]
Because the radiator is going to be more restrictive and the air like water is going to want to travel in the the path of least resistance.

[00:48:29:09 – 00:48:51:10]
So Matt’s idea was let’s put an air dam on there. Let’s put something on there that that will block that airflow and see if we can’t push more air through the radiator. I mean, certainly by definition, running hot on the highway, you have an airflow problem. I mean, it can be other things too. But if if all those other things have been addressed, it’s probably an airflow problem.

[00:48:52:12 – 00:48:57:26]
So that’s where we’re at now. I’m also looking at some electric fans.

[00:48:59:12 – 00:49:10:02]
Dirt, dirt bound off road has a three electric fan setup that replaces the factory Xori fan and the mechanical fan.

[00:49:10:02 – 00:50:09:25]
And it has a the CFM rating is 4,600. And what I’ve read was you need a minimum of 2,900 to have what you have with the aux and the mechanical fan. So certainly 4,600 CFM is probably the best I’m going to do. At least, you know, without placing some sort of jet engine or something in there to suck air through the front. In fact, at 4,600 CFM, I’ll probably suck small animals and leaves and things up to the front of the Jeep. And, you know, I understand the bumper that I put on there, the lights, the winch, all that stuff is going to be disturbing the air and making it harder for the air to get through. Although I have seen an improvement in the running hot at highway speeds than what I had originally when I had the original bumper and nothing in front of the Jeep grill.

[00:50:09:25 – 00:50:26:15]
So I just wanted to mention that because I know that’s an obvious way to go. You’re putting things in front of the Jeep. It’s going to make it harder for the air to get through. You’re running hot at highway speeds. You know, take those lights off. Take that winch off. Be normal.

[00:50:26:15 – 00:51:34:11]
it, I’m not going to. I’m going to figure out some way around it. So I don’t think–oh, one thing I did do this last summer, I took the B&M transmission cooler off the front, in front of the condenser, the AC condenser and radiator, and I moved it down to the bumper. There’s some slots in the bumper, and I thought, you know, that the transmission probably isn’t running that hot. I do have the transmission cooler, the factory transmission cooler in the airflow. I’ll put this one in the bumper, and it’s not going to get as much air, but it’s going to get some air going through there. And, you know, that might be a benefit. And actually, that made a difference. That made a noticeable difference. And it may be why I was able to run at around 210 whenever I was in the 7-degree air temps. Because I took that heat generator, and according to my IR laser–well, not laser, yeah, it has a laser pointer on it–the IR thermometer, I scanned it, and I think that was 165 degrees.

[00:51:35:14 – 00:51:50:26]
The transmission cooler was 165, 170 degrees, and it’s about 12 inches by 8 or 9 inches. So it was this nice big heat generator in front of the radiator and condenser that are also generating and dissipating heat.

[00:51:50:26 – 00:52:10:12]
So moving that out of the airflow did help. Obviously, the best thing to do would be to take that little transmission cooler, stick an 8-inch fan or something on it with a thermostat, and have it kick on depending upon what the transmission temperature, fluid temperature is. But I haven’t got that far yet.

[00:52:11:24 – 00:52:26:07]
So my next step will be to put the skid plate back on–the factory skid back on the front of the Jeep and see if that makes a difference. And then after that, it’s the three electric fans.

[00:52:26:07 – 00:52:35:05]
4600 CFM, baby. And I don’t know, leaf blowers, duct tape to the front to force more air through there, I don’t know.

[00:52:36:29 – 00:52:47:26]
I really don’t want to go to the 3-core all-aluminum radiator for $500. Although, that probably would have been cheaper–I’m certain it would have been cheaper than all the things I’ve already done.

[00:52:47:26 – 00:53:19:09]
So if you’re having a problem with the Jeep running hot at idle or out on the trail, I think that the $40 change gets the heavy-duty Grand Cherokee fan clutch. That makes a big difference. That’s going to suck more air through. It should hurt your gas mileage a little bit, although I haven’t seen a big change in mine. And it squeals.

[00:53:21:21 – 00:54:27:28]
If you’re accelerating, it has a tendency to squeal. And I don’t know if that’s because of the fan blades going too fast or exactly what it is. But I thought I had a bad one at first. No, it just squeals. It doesn’t squeal all the time. It only squeals at certain times. But it squeals. It seems to be a common thing. And then the 3-core radiator, it does help. Now, I’ve heard that having that additional core means that it doesn’t dissipate the heat as well because now your heat generation is that much deeper. So instead of having two rows, two cores, and having the air flow over the two cores and just cooling those two cores, now you’re having to cool a third core. And each one is adding heat to the next one. So I don’t know. I’ve seen a huge difference on the Chevy engines whenever I would do that. I did not see a big difference doing it to the Jeep. But the 3-core was $167 from Audogorn. So I don’t know. It seems to be a pretty good deal.

[00:54:27:28 – 00:54:38:19]
So that was me talking for about an hour. Pay a little more attention here to the chat room. Does anybody have any questions or comments that may have been missing?

[00:54:38:19 – 00:55:05:08]
Dalton says, “Does it have some kind of heat-resistant backing on the mat?” I don’t know. I only started looking at that day before yesterday. According to talking to Matt today on Facebook chat, he said that the mat is about an inch longer than the factory skid. So he said, “Just put the factory skid on it. Don’t worry about the mat.”

[00:55:05:08 – 00:56:13:10]
So that’s what I want to do. I’m going to just put that skid back on. I don’t want to scramble around to try to figure out where the bolts are for that silly thing. I guess I’ll have to make do, maybe go buy some because I didn’t save them. I didn’t think that skid was ever going back on there. I think it looks better without the skid, but you know, having the engine running cool is better. Oh, and by the way, I do notice that with all the modifications that I made, even on the hottest days in Houston, when I’m sitting in traffic, I do not feel a loss of performance. Before, you could tell that the engine was not producing as much horsepower as it would. Even though the temperature didn’t look like it was that bad, the engine wouldn’t perform as well. And with the modifications that I’ve made, it is like a cool spring day with the windows down. It performs just as snappy as it used to, even on the hottest days. So that makes me feel better about the modifications that I’ve made because it feels snappy and, you know, like it’s ready to go like it always has on the cooler days.

[00:56:13:10 – 00:56:19:06]
So guys, any questions, any comments? Any questions about the contest?

[00:56:19:06 – 00:57:14:16]
Just a reminder, we have two contests going on. One is winding down and coming to an end, either in the next few days or in about a week. And that is for the Performance Distributors FireWireKit 4.0. If you’re not familiar with this kit, it is a basically plug wires, a higher voltage coil. It is a rotor and a cap. And together, it’s supposed to allow you to run your spark plugs up to 65, a .065 gap. And a bigger gap means a larger spark. A larger spark means more fuel burn inside the cylinder. And that translates into more power and better fuel economy.

[00:57:16:00 – 00:58:03:21]
I had a problem with mine and finally wound up finding out that it was the crank position sensor that was causing me a problem, not the kit. And I have not seen a large improvement in my mileage, but I may have other issues that I’m working on. It has been documented that this kit does improve gas mileage two or three miles per gallon. So it was, I got the kit around the time that the price of gas was up real high. And I was hoping to get higher than 13 miles per gallon, what I’m currently getting. It’s almost like clockwork. It goes anywhere from a high 11 mile per gallon to a mid 13, 5, 13, 6.

[00:58:05:01 – 00:58:32:22]
And doesn’t really change. And hasn’t changed since I put the 456 gears in it. That was the biggest increase. It was around 10 miles per gallon before. And now it’s up around consistently 12 something, 12 to 13. And the 456 gears made a big difference. Now I don’t drive highway. I drive back roads. So I drive 40 to 50, maybe 60 miles an hour with stops.

[00:58:32:22 – 01:00:11:14]
So, you know, you’ve got to factor that stuff in too. I have not gone on a trip because of the running hot problem on the highway. And I suspect that if I could go on a long trip at 65 and maintain, you know, 65, maybe 70 miles an hour, my gas mileage would probably be a little better. But running the higher RPM, I’m probably going through a little more gas. Now, if I do get a chance financially with all this other stuff that I need or want to do that a Jeep, I would like to get one of those programmers and try, you know, doing a burn on the gas mileage. And I would like to get a computer to make it run more fuel efficient and see if that wouldn’t help. It would be great if I could get 16, 17 miles per gallon out of it. I’d be really happy with that. And based on the feedback that I’ve gotten from two websites, maybe three websites, people with lifted Jeeps, 4.5 inch, 32, 33 inch tires on the highway are seeing as high as 16, 15 to 16, maybe even 17 to 18. 17 miles per gallon. Not everybody, but some are. And I was ready to accept that that’s just what the gas mileage is going to be. I mean, that’s that you have to pay to play. And if you’re going to lift, if the big tires on, you’re going to lose gas mileage. But there are Jeeps running automatics with similar lifts, similar tires with armor, blah, blah, blah, getting 16, 17 miles per gallon. But not getting 20. I wouldn’t believe 20. But so that’s what I want to try.

[01:00:11:14 – 01:00:17:26]
Yep, you’re right. You’re right. Wayne Wayne says it’s a Jeep. Jeep love gas. End of story.

[01:00:17:26 – 01:00:19:02]
So

[01:00:19:02 – 01:00:42:25]
yeah, I know, Rene, that’s what I’ve heard. Rene says that not any I have seen. You know, it’s a website. People can be exaggerating. They could, they could be going downhill. They could be going downhill with a tailwind. They could have been being towed. I don’t know. I just know that there were more than onesies and twosies that were saying they were getting

[01:00:44:06 – 01:00:51:23]
anywhere from 15 to 17 miles per gallon on the highway. Four and a half inch lift, 32 or 33 inch tires.

[01:00:51:23 – 01:00:52:27]
So

[01:00:52:27 – 01:01:07:26]
I’ve read some articles of where they’ve done the same thing. In fact, one of the articles I read, they talked about the performance distributor firewire kit that I got. And that thing that they did, it boosted them two or three miles per gallon.

[01:01:08:28 – 01:01:10:21]
Not so with me, but

[01:01:10:21 – 01:01:19:21]
I have to check the fuel pressure and a few of the things that Matt and I are working on. I may be driving over there just to let him hook up his

[01:01:19:21 – 01:01:37:14]
snap on ODB2 scanner and see what it says. I’ve even changed out injectors. So I don’t know. I could be having a fuel flow issue and that could be messing things up.

[01:01:37:14 – 01:02:23:14]
Yeah, propane. You know, actually, East Texas Hunter says the propane would be bad ass. Yeah, propane would be pretty neat. It’s, you know, any U-Haul place you can fill up. And I think the price is pretty decent on it compared to gas. And I’ve seen some larger, you know, some Ford Dodge pickups set up on propane and they seem to do quite well. That was years ago too. So I think it’s certainly a cleaner burning fuel too. I think what would be really cool would be to have a diesel. Now the diesel fuel is more expensive, but if you could get a diesel that had decent horsepower and of course it would have this wonderful torque, that would really be a neat thing to have in a Jeep.

[01:02:23:14 – 01:02:34:19]
Okay, guys, we’re running a little over. This reminds you again that we’ve got the contest,

[01:02:34:19 – 01:03:30:04]
the performance distributors fireware kit 4.0. Please get on the site and vote for our tiebreaker between Weldman and Orderdean for the best question. That’ll be up tonight or tomorrow. And don’t forget, get these beautiful, beautifully crafted detours A-pillar light mounts. You can see them on XJTalk. I do not think that they’re available on the detours website yet as far as looking at them. Of course you can call Mark and order them. They are $47 shipped. If you don’t want to try to win a set, you can always just call Mark and order them and he’ll get them out to you. And they’re really nice. I would like to have this on myself, but I already have planned for 8 lights on my Jeep and I just don’t know that 10 would be the right way to go.

[01:03:31:07 – 01:04:51:22]
I just think that would be, I think 8’s going to be a lot. But if I wasn’t going to do the overhead lights, I would be doing these. They’re very well made. Of course, anything that you get from detours is well made. So get on if you’d like to get in and perhaps get a nice pair of $50 A-pillar mounts for $2 or $4 or $6. Get on and send us your $2 through PayPal and buy a chance to win. It really helps out. We’re hoping to do more contests and this is kind of one of those tests that we can see how much interest there are in contests because frankly, if I can feel confident that I can order a $300 bumper from Mark or from one of the other bumper manufacturers, A.J. Offroad, etc. etc. I’ll be happy to put up that as a contest and let people pay $2 or $5 or $10 depending on the overall cost of the wanted item and we’ll get it. But I needed to see what my exposure would be and I figured $47 for these A-pillar lights I could

[01:04:52:28 – 01:05:05:16]
handle. So obviously, we have not got enough people buying chances to cover the cost of the A-pillar light mounts yet. So

[01:05:05:16 – 01:05:24:02]
I’d love to get people in there that at least break even but that wasn’t part of the deal. The deal is $2 is what it takes to enter the contest and that’s all it costs to win the thing. That’s your chance to win. So if you can get it for $2 or $4, I mean what

[01:05:24:02 – 01:06:30:09]
And if you’re a super member, you know, get your entry in. It’s free. You’ve already paid by becoming a super member, site subscriber. And if you haven’t subscribed to xjtalk.com and you find that xjtalk.com is entertaining and helpful and saves you money, think about being a subscriber. $2.50 a month, $5 a month, $10 a month, which frankly I think that’s way too much money. But if that’s what you want to do, but, you know, $2.50 a month, you become a subscriber. It helps pay the bills to keep the website up. It’s not going anywhere but it certainly helps us out keeping it going. So if you go to the homepage, you’ll see on there where you can become a subscriber. If you don’t want to do the monthly thing, I understand, don’t want a monthly bill, have a look at the donation thing. One time donation. Certainly don’t want to come across that any of those things are required. It’s not. It’s a free site. You should only give if you feel like it’s something that you feel comfortable doing.

[01:06:30:09 – 01:06:59:02]
So with that, I just want to say thank you very much for being here tonight. I hope that the conversation about the Jeep running hot and my personal issues I’ve been having with my Jeep will be somewhat helpful to you. If nothing else, it might be a little like therapy, knowing that somebody else is having similar problems to yours and also to knowing all the things that have been done that may or may not help you.

[01:07:00:20 – 01:07:23:16]
If you have any questions about things that I’ve done to my cooling system and things that I think have helped the most, you know, feel free to contact me. Start a post. Send me a PM. A post would be better because everybody gets the benefit from the information, but happy to talk about it because it’s therapy for me. I get to feel better about it because it’s very frustrating. It’s

[01:07:23:16 – 01:07:24:11]
frustrating.

[01:07:25:11 – 01:08:37:02]
But I’m going to whip it. I love my Jeep and I’m going to fix this problem. And then once it’s fixed, then there’ll be something else. No, actually, the Jeep is a very good vehicle. It has been largely trouble free for the 12, 13 years that we’ve had it. It has a minor design flaw and it’s the cooling system. And I believe it’s because of that narrow front end. One of the things that makes the Cherokee look cool is that wide narrow front end, but it’s hard to pull air through there. It’s hard to get a fan back there to pull the air through. So at least that’s my feeling. So guys, next week, don’t forget, we’re going to pick the winner for the Detours A-Pillar light mounts. So be here next week to find out who wins. And if you’ve entered, be here to see if you win. We’ll post it up on the site too in case you can’t be here or something comes up. Don’t worry about it. You do not have to be present to win, but a little excitement in the show. So until next week, my name is Tony, motoroyonextraytalk.com. Visit the site. Buy a

[01:08:37:02 – 01:08:42:07]
ticket for the A-Pillar mount lights. See you next week, guys.

[01:09:13:28 – 01:09:15:18]
This is Big Jim 350 and I

[01:09:15:18 – 01:09:20:03]
love X-raytalk.com. Awwww.

[01:09:20:03 – 01:09:20:03]