Why is YJ Water Pump Better?
Jul. 21, 2025
Water pump differences? - Jeep Strokers
Water pump differences?
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Do all 4.0 water pumps mount the same?I read some. Info stating + water pumps has a redesigned impeller that was similar to the hesco option? 8 fin vs 5..thus better circulation? However I am unsure about using one in my jeep? The block is a 89 renix block going in a 92 cherokee. I was curious about running a 01-06 wrangler pump, IF there's an added benefit from just using a newer style pump that is?
Also my stroker has a paper type gasket with silicon on for the timing cover. Should I just yank that and run a felpro blue gasket? Valve cover & oil pan has the felpro gaskets.
Re: Water pump differences?
Few teasers.Re: Water pump differences?
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I do not know about the number of fins but Wrangler pumps are not the same as Cherokee pumps. The Cherokee has a different hole pattern with the bolts spread apart and it is shorter. I took an engine out of a 94 cherokee to put in a CJ and had to get a Wrangler pump.The 5 fins looks like it will pump plenty. To make more flow I would make them deeper, not add more. Flowkooler is the way to go if you are worried about flow.
Re: Water pump differences?
Defcon92 wrote:I read some. Info stating + water pumps has a redesigned impeller that was similar to the hesco option? 8 fin vs 5..thus better circulation? However I am unsure about using one in my jeep? The block is a 89 renix block going in a 92 cherokee. I was curious about running a 01-06 wrangler pump, IF there's an added benefit from just using a newer style pump that is?I have never seen a Jeep pump with 8 fins in the stock style. Always 5. I recall something about water pumps changing.. I also recall someone said rotation direction but that isn't correct as the pulley would have to be ribbed to run no the other side of the belt. I know the WJ water pump won't work on the XJ and probably the 00+ TJ pumps too.
Also my stroker has a paper type gasket with silicon on for the timing cover. Should I just yank that and run a felpro blue gasket? Valve cover & oil pan has the felpro gaskets.That gasket should be okay with RTV. Isn't the Felpro just a thicker paper gasket?
Re: Water pump differences?
SilverXJ wrote:Defcon92 wrote:I read some. Info stating + water pumps has a redesigned impeller that was similar to the hesco option? 8 fin vs 5..thus better circulation? However I am unsure about using one in my jeep? The block is a 89 renix block going in a 92 cherokee. I was curious about running a 01-06 wrangler pump, IF there's an added benefit from just using a newer style pump that is?I have never seen a Jeep pump with 8 fins in the stock style. Always 5. I recall something about water pumps changing.. I also recall someone said rotation direction but that isn't correct as the pulley would have to be ribbed to run no the other side of the belt. I know the WJ water pump won't work on the XJ and probably the 00+ TJ pumps too.Also my stroker has a paper type gasket with silicon on for the timing cover. Should I just yank that and run a felpro blue gasket? Valve cover & oil pan has the felpro gaskets.That gasket should be okay with RTV. Isn't the Felpro just a thicker paper gasket?
The felpro I looked at showed the blue silicon type of gasket like the valve cover & oil pan? I figure those might be better? Especially for the timing cover since I'd have to pull the harmonic damper to get at it. And it's just be easier out of the jeep.
So 89 block into a 92? Use the 92 or 89?
Re: Water pump differences?
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Defcon92 wrote:The felpro I looked at showed the blue silicon type of gasket like the valve cover & oil pan? I figure those might be better? Especially for the timing cover since I'd have to pull the harmonic damper to get at it. And it's just be easier out of the jeep.The valve cover and oil pan have a silicon gasket option, which I would recommend over cork. The timing cover does not.
So 89 block into a 92? Use the 92 or 89?If you are asking about the water pump there is no difference as the pasrts listing shows 87-01 for the water pump.
I also remembered the TJ water pump mounts the fan as well and it very different form the XJ.
Question about clearance between radiator and water pump pulley ...
So I have a very strange thing going on, I am hoping someone can possibly point me in the correct direction. I purchased a 94 YJ and found it has a 4.0L i6 blocked dated to 92, previous owner did a swap it appears. The rig had a seized up electric fan on the front of the radiator, I wanted to swap it back to the original motor fan/clutch assembly. I replaced the water pump with a stock water pump, stock pulley (no spacer). I had an OEM fan and clutch assembly ready to install and realized there is not enough clearance to fit the fan/clutch. The face of the clutch hits the radiator. Has anyone ever experienced this? I thought maybe the motor mounts have somehow shifted the motor forward, or do I have an issue or modification on the radiator support that is creating the lack of clearance. Can anyone send the measurement between the face of the radiator and the water pump pulley face? I greatly appreciate any help that can be offered, this one has me stumped.
YJ filter positioned below. You can fix this easily by unthreading the oil filter adapter bolt (either 9/16 Allen or T60 torx), and then removing the leftover roll pin from the block. Then after that you can unthread the oil filter hookup on the adapter and thread it into the block. Torque it to 50 ft lbs or so. The oil filter adapter is notorious for leaking, so I’d remove it for sure.
The fact that it is an XJ engine doesn’t mean much else (ultimately the same engine as a YJ) except XJs had different left side engine block brackets. XJs being unibody had less clearance and so the left side bracket had the thru-bolt hole closer to the block. YJ had it further out. You can see this by my aftermarket StinkyFab block bracket which has two holes drilled, one for XJ and one for YJ. I am using the YJ hole, obviously.
Now, why your motor mount is so far forward is not so clear. My guess is they couldn’t reach the frame with the XJ left side bracket and so they moved it further and further forward until they could fab up something and then welded new stuff on. Or, maybe it was a 4 cylinder before and they just did a terrible job of adapting the 6 cyl. I really don’t know. The proper fix would be a YJ left side bracket (or new aftermarket stronger brackets like stinkyfab or brown dog), and rewelding new perches in the right location on the frame. Clearly, whatever they did led to the engine being too far forward and so they mounted a crappy fan on the front of the radiator to “fix” the now screwed up fan clutch location. Gotta hate POs.
I can’t help you with a measurement from radiator to fan clutch unfortunately, as I have my grille out. Someone else probably can.
Bet you have a longer than stock rear driveshaft too… It’s been a while, so I could be wrong but I don’t think so, I want to say the 2.5L YJs use the front set of slots on the t-case skid for the transmission mount studs. I’m not sure if the 2.5 skid even has the rearward slots that the 6 cylinder uses, but I wonder if they see the engine where they did in order to drop the studs in the front skid locations thinking that’s where they needed to go?
It is a little bit weird it was a 4 cylinder before, because the SE trim in was 4.0 only. Have any VINs for the tub or windshield to confirm things? I once had a friend who thought his 93 was a 95 because it had a 95 windshield on it. Once I realized his tub had a different VIN, it made since that he simply had a 93 with a new windshield frame on it.
Peek underneath the skid and see which set of slots your Trans mount is sitting in. Or who knows maybe they made new holes for that lol.
As for the wiring, hopefully the new harness fixes you up there. Just have to wait and see. The 4.0 and 2.5 are mostly the same besides injector quantity and a power steering wiring hookup for 2.5s to sense when power steering is used so it can bump the idle when you steer at low engine speed. I could see that it must have been a 2.5 before I read that in the post. Besides the welding marks on the frame that shows where the old motor mounts were the clearance between the firewall and the engine/valve cover is further than what you normally see with a 4.0. Typically the valve cover is a lot closer to the firewall and the pic of yours looks strange to me because the gap back there is definitely wider.
You can see how much closer my 4.0 sits to the firewall here
I just grabbed a couple pics in the garage of the clearance between the fan clutch and the radiator. Your radiator looks to me to be sitting just as it should be with the proper brackets, etc..
I can stick a tape measure in there if you want the actual distance.
My previous YJ had an XJ 4.0 in it form a previous owner. The power steering was cobbled together to make it work and was a mess. As Macho mentioned, the oil filter adaptor is a dead giveaway.
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Unfortunately you are dealing with previous owner screwery. For one thing, you have an XJ engine, that is determined by the oil filter pointing rearwards since it is mounted to an oil filter adapter. Only the XJ (and maybe the 91-92 MJ) uses the oil filter adapter on the high output 4.0L (91-95 4.0).YJ filter positioned below. You can fix this easily by unthreading the oil filter adapter bolt (either 9/16 Allen or T60 torx), and then removing the leftover roll pin from the block. Then after that you can unthread the oil filter hookup on the adapter and thread it into the block. Torque it to 50 ft lbs or so. The oil filter adapter is notorious for leaking, so I’d remove it for sure.
The fact that it is an XJ engine doesn’t mean much else (ultimately the same engine as a YJ) except XJs had different left side engine block brackets. XJs being unibody had less clearance and so the left side bracket had the thru-bolt hole closer to the block. YJ had it further out. You can see this by my aftermarket StinkyFab block bracket which has two holes drilled, one for XJ and one for YJ. I am using the YJ hole, obviously.
Now, why your motor mount is so far forward is not so clear. My guess is they couldn’t reach the frame with the XJ left side bracket and so they moved it further and further forward until they could fab up something and then welded new stuff on. Or, maybe it was a 4 cylinder before and they just did a terrible job of adapting the 6 cyl. I really don’t know. The proper fix would be a YJ left side bracket (or new aftermarket stronger brackets like stinkyfab or brown dog), and rewelding new perches in the right location on the frame. Clearly, whatever they did led to the engine being too far forward and so they mounted a crappy fan on the front of the radiator to “fix” the now screwed up fan clutch location. Gotta hate POs.
I can’t help you with a measurement from radiator to fan clutch unfortunately, as I have my grille out. Someone else probably can.
Bet you have a longer than stock rear driveshaft too… It’s been a while, so I could be wrong but I don’t think so, I want to say the 2.5L YJs use the front set of slots on the t-case skid for the transmission mount studs. I’m not sure if the 2.5 skid even has the rearward slots that the 6 cylinder uses, but I wonder if they see the engine where they did in order to drop the studs in the front skid locations thinking that’s where they needed to go?
It is a little bit weird it was a 4 cylinder before, because the SE trim in was 4.0 only. Have any VINs for the tub or windshield to confirm things? I once had a friend who thought his 93 was a 95 because it had a 95 windshield on it. Once I realized his tub had a different VIN, it made since that he simply had a 93 with a new windshield frame on it.
Peek underneath the skid and see which set of slots your Trans mount is sitting in. Or who knows maybe they made new holes for that lol.
As for the wiring, hopefully the new harness fixes you up there. Just have to wait and see. The 4.0 and 2.5 are mostly the same besides injector quantity and a power steering wiring hookup for 2.5s to sense when power steering is used so it can bump the idle when you steer at low engine speed. I could see that it must have been a 2.5 before I read that in the post. Besides the welding marks on the frame that shows where the old motor mounts were the clearance between the firewall and the engine/valve cover is further than what you normally see with a 4.0. Typically the valve cover is a lot closer to the firewall and the pic of yours looks strange to me because the gap back there is definitely wider.
You can see how much closer my 4.0 sits to the firewall here
I just grabbed a couple pics in the garage of the clearance between the fan clutch and the radiator. Your radiator looks to me to be sitting just as it should be with the proper brackets, etc..
I can stick a tape measure in there if you want the actual distance.
My previous YJ had an XJ 4.0 in it form a previous owner. The power steering was cobbled together to make it work and was a mess. As Macho mentioned, the oil filter adaptor is a dead giveaway.
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