XJ freeze plugs

Well, it looks like the dreaded XJ freeze plugs are where some of the coolant on my wife's XJ is going. Flippin' wonderful.

Is it possible to at least see/find out which one(s) are leaking (assuming it's the rear ones) without taking the trans out? It does look like I'll have to outsource the job as I don't have the tools to take the trans out (no ramps or trans jack) and I have the ugly feeling that's going to fall into the "I tend to buy cars for less" category"...

There is one freeze plug on the rear of the head that has almost zero clearance to the firewall. I was able to knock it out & put a rubber / expanding bung setup on one truck.

The rest of the plugs are on the sides of the block I think.

KJ

My understanding from searching around Teh Interwebz, yo is that there are two freeze plugs on the back - the one at the back of the head, and one at the back of the block. The latter one looks like it's covered by the bell housing, though - just wondering if anybody knows for certain. All the others appear to be on the sides of the block, but you have to remove both manifolds to get at the ones on the driver side.

Assuming you have the 4.0, I know for a fact that the one at the rear of the block is behind the bellhousing. You have to remove the clutch and flywheel to get to it. This is usually the one that fails because it appears to be an area that has heavy cavitation. That area in my block was pitted pretty badly.

I did the whole thing without a jack. Ramps aren't expensive at all. I removed the trans and transfer case together, but couldn't bench press them in without separating them. Once I did that, the trans went in easily. Neither is very heavy on its own, but it's really hard to get above you together because of added weight and the length.

With the transmission out and the motor sitting as far down as possible, I could almost get the plug in the head. If I undid the mounts, I could have.

What year is her XJ? If it's a Renix model, swap in the HO manifolds for some added power. If you have to pull the head, try to put on the best flowing one, which I can't recall right now.

It's a 91 4L with a slushbox and I don't really like the idea of taking said slushbox out. If it was a manual I'd be somewhat less reluctant to pull the trans, for some reason autoboxes with cooler lines and similar stuff scare me.

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take you to change the plug?

BoxheadTim wrote: Well, it looks like the dreaded XJ freeze plugs are where some of the coolant on my wife's XJ is going. Flippin' wonderful. Is it possible to at least see/find out which one(s) are leaking (assuming it's the rear ones) without taking the trans out? It does look like I'll have to outsource the job as I don't have the tools to take the trans out (no ramps or trans jack) and I have the ugly feeling that's going to fall into the "I tend to buy cars for less" category"...

Dump a bottle of orange food coloring in the cooling system? Don't some shops have a light (like a black light) that makes coolant much more visible than under room light? I remember something--or am I confusing this with looking for A/C coolant leakage? Either way, dump some bright food coloring in, and you should be able to see where it's coming out. Or won't see if it's coming out if it's the rear freeze plug---except for drips on the garage/driveway.

I can't really say, I pulled the trans and found a ton of "while I'm in there..." stuff. Just out, fixed, and back in, I could have tackled in a weekend. With having to wait for parts and apathy after getting the parts in, it took me months. For a while, I worked on someone else's challenge car an hour away far more than the Jeep.

Well, that's part of the issue - my wife needs the Jeep as a DD and I've always been reluctant to wrench on DDs if there are no backups.

Which is a joke, four cars, two of them DDs and we have no steenkin' backup vehicle in winter atm.

I'm lucky that when I work, I'm close enough to home to walk. There are days that I opt to walk, even with 2 perfectly capable cars in the driveway.

If you can rent a jack, it really isn't a bad job. If I had one and didn't run into the stuff I wanted to fix, I would have been able to do it in a few hours.

I hear you - unfortunately where we live, it's a 10 minute drive to the nearest store and 45 minutes from here to where I work, hence the need for two working vehicles...