I came out into the garage and my TJ was parked over the weekend and what did I find? A puddle of Anti-freeze. |
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Leak source is on the top of the radiator. Appearently there is a tendancy for TJs to have a leak near the top because of the plastic upper section. |
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Looked down the radiator and found where the Anti-Freeze was running down along the front of the radiator and dripping onto the ground. |
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First step is to remove the radiator cap. **NOTE** Do not remove the cap if the engine is hot. You must let the engine cool. |
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Remove the overflow hose from the radiator. Mine did not have a clip to remove so I just gently pulled it off. |
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My TJ has a belt routing decal on top. |
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To play it safe I took a picture of my belt routing decal and I'll have another made and placed back under the hood. Nothing says trouble than not remembering how the belt is supposed to go back on if I have to relace it. |
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On the stock 00 TJ radiator there is a little pitcock on the passenger side of the Jeep at the very bottom.
Keep in mind before you drain your fluid your going to need to catch aproximately 2.5 gallons of water and Anti-Freeze. |
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Drain the fuid into a container. You DO NOT want your animals to get into this fluid. Its harmful to them. |
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I used a pair of channel locks to pinch back the clip on the top of the radiator so I could slide off the hose. When you pull your hoses off its a good time to look at them. If they are brittle or appear to be discolored or warn you might want to replace them. |
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I closed the pitcock before removing the lower hose. I knew I would have some loose fluid in the radiator and I did not want to contend with two sources of Anti-Freeze dripping on the ground. |
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Again I used a pair of channel locks to squeeze the lower clip. |
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Unlike the top hose there isn't much room under the TJ to wiggle the bottom hose so I used a flat blade screw driver to gently push back the hose off the end of the radiator. |
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To keep in debris from entering the radiator stuff a rag inside both of the open ends of the radiator hoses. I didn't expect much of anything to get inside, but heck its fast and its easy. |
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Slide your lower hose behind your draglink so its out of the way while you work under your Jeep. |
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My water overflow bottle is located on the passenger side of the radiator, which Im sure everybody elses is as well. |
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See the little white dot in the middle of the picture? You will need to depress it while you pull the overflow bottle straight up and out of its location. |
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On the backside of the radiator between the radiator and the engine is the shroud. You will need a wrench or socket to loosen the 6 bolts. There are 3 on the drivers and 3 on the passengers side. I failed to note the bolt size. |
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Underneth the Jeep is the same way. It just gets a bit cramped under the Jeep, but they come off the same exact way. |
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After you have loosened the shroud completely slide it back as far as it will go against the fan. |
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That there is the fan clutch. |
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Start from the top and remove the top (2) bolts on the drivers side and passenger side.
You do not want to remove the bottom bolt on the drivers side or passengers side because the radiator is notched and slides down as well the lower bolts will help you hold and install the new radiator. |
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**NOTE** The fan shroud and the radiator have two different style bolts holding them in place. Make sure you put them back in their respected places. I did this install a month ago and failed to note which was which. |
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Simply reach in and grab the radiator pulling it straight out.
Note the sloted grove in the bottom of the radiator? Thats where the bottom bolts come in handy. |
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This is the stock single row radiator. There is one row of cooling chambers running straight down. |
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The new 3-row has 3 chambers of cooling going straight down.
Some will argue that one big cooling chamber is more efficent than 3, but Im to tired to argue. |
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Side by side the new CFS Heavy DUTY 3-row is the same size. |
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Side by side looking at height the stock metal/plastic radiator is just a little bit taller. |
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The bottom of the stock radiator has a pitcock and a outlet hose. |
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The new CFS has a outlet and two ports to hook up a transmission cooler. I have a standard transmission so I will not be using the ports. Maybe someday I'll get creative and attempt to cool something with it. =) |
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Drop the new radiator into place. This thing bolts in exactly like the stock radiator. They did not miss a detail.
I didn't show exactly how the bolts where removed, but as you can see from the picture above both radiators have a hole cut into the mounting bracket so you can slide in a socket on an extention. |
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Up higher along the radiator its exactly the same. |
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After I hooked up fan shroud it was time to install the hoses and see how it all looked in place.
Other than its metal your not going to notice under the hood when its all dirty. |
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Hook up the overflow bottle to the shroud. Heres a good writeup on flushing and refilling your radiator. Its what I used. Flush your Radiator |
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