WJCO's Build Thread, 1999 WJ

Andy5160 said:

Cap cap fucking cap :doh:

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HighwayTrout said:

Damn. I hope it's the cap! I hate these type of problems.

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USMC Wrangler said:

Fingers crossed it's the cap!

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aTX427 said:

Glad you found it.


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Stotch said:

:thumb: :fingerscrossed: Hope that does it for you!

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notnalc68 said:

Hope that does it.



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WJCO said:

Radiator cap did not fix it. It was hot this weekend. Going up the Mountain with ac on and temps rise. Turning off ac, temps go down. However on the way back down the mountain WI ac on, it was completely normal until i hit a light. Sitting at the light it started rising again.

This leads me to believe it's not the water pump. I'm going to pull the fan shroud and clean the radiator better. If this doesn't work, I don't know what to do next. Luckily it's manageable and doesn't overheat to the point of doing damage.

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BaddestCross said:

Any chance there's air in the cooling system?

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wayoflife said:

I'm gonna have to agree with the air in the cooling system. Have you checked to make sure there isn't any? Are both heater hoses getting hot and is your reservoir filling up and sucking back into the radiator like it should?

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WJCO said:

Well, I may have accidentally fixed this cooling system problem today. I pulled it in to diagnose it once again. Being that the problem seems to only occur with the ac on, I've been leaving it on when I diagnose it. Well today, when I started it, the ac clutch was binding and chattering and wouldn't engage. The belt even made an abnormal noise. I've also noticed lately anyways that the clutch cycles about every 5-10 seconds but has been making a slight rattle when it engages. It hasn't bothered me because the ac cools. So, I shut off the engine and removed the belt to make sure the compressor isn't locked up which it's not. Pulley spins fine as well. Well in the process of turning the hub nut, I must have adjusted something inadvertently, because now the clutch engages and hardly cycles at all, it stays running quite a bit longer, and the ac cools a ton better. But more importantly, the temps aren't rising anymore. I need to test it on a trail, but two long road tests today and it was fine.

Got to thinking, if the ac clutch wasn't fully engaging and I didn't know it, at idle this would definitely affect the water pump rpm, and this would also affect the refrigerant flow through the condenser. So I'm really hoping this is the end of this stupid problem.

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GraniteCrystal said:

Huh. Even if it's fixed (and I hope it is) do you know root cause? If it were me, I'd still want to know

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WJCO said:

Thanks. I hope it's fixed too. Only 3 parts to a clutch and they are purchased together. Coil, clutch, pulley. The coil is an electromagnet, being I didn't touch anything electrical, it's likely not that. Also, when they fail, they usually don't work at all. Pulley spins freely with no play, so that's likely not it. The clutch itself is probably what the issue is, they are adjustable and they wear. My guess is that it was worn just enough to leave an excessive gap between itself and the mating pulley surface. So when I turned the screw, I likely did something that brought the gap closer, and now it works Normally. A new clutch is nearly the same price as a compressor with a clutch. If it acts up again, I'll likely just get a new compressor.

Edit:This guy did a pretty basic video on how it works.

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