Fixing P0128 on My 2017 Jeep Wrangler — EASY Thermostat Replacement!

All right. So, today we're working on my wife's 2017 Jeep JK. It is throwing a P0128 code. Um, upon inspection, the engine coolant was low, so I filled the engine coolant back up and the light did go off. Should I be continuing this? Probably not. Am I going to? Yes, we're going to replace the thermostat. The reason that we're going to replace the thermostat, there's a couple reasons. One is I want to make sure that the thermostat is good to go. And also, I already ordered it. I'm not going to return it. And if I keep it here, I'm going to lose it. I'm going to break it. It's going to get dirty. Whatever. and three. Her heat hasn't really worked since we bought it. And this could be one of the culprits. So, we're going to swap it out. And you guys are coming along for the ride. All right. So, when you open the hood, you're going to find the cover. It's easy. Pull up, pull out, throw it to the side. If you guys don't have a cover, then I guess you guys don't have a cover. So, basically the thermostat is right in right here. See my finger? It's this right here. So, we're going to take off this clamp, this clamp, and these two 10 mm bolts. We're going to pull this completely off. And then we're going to go down in here. Drain the fluid out of the radiator. Pop this off here. Pop the one off there. Pop the two bolts out. Put a new one in. Put it in. Fill it up. We're good to go. So, let's start. Let's pop this off. I don't know if I want to throw you guys over ahead or put you here, but I'm going to put it here for now. And then once we start getting into the thermostat, I'll throw you on the headmounts. Make sure you put these where you're going to lose them. I was going to make a joke, but it's not a joke. So, as I'm doing this, I might just uh Oh, [ __ ] See, I told you. I told you. I'm going to put that off to the side. Told you. Put them where you're going to lose them. All right. Get this big. Oh, what is this? Look at that. So, we got an electrical connector to do is we push down. Get this out of the way. Put that somewhere where you're going to lose it, too. Right there. This right here is our thermostat. See if I can get you guys in there a little closer. Right there is our thermostat. So, we got one bolt here, one bolt here, hose here, hose here. So, now we're going to drain the system. All right. In order to drain the radiator, you got to crawl under the Jeep. You see that little dial right there? What the pliers? That dial. So, that's got to get turned. This is the front of the Jeep. This way. So, this dial right here has got to get turned counterclockwise to open. I'm going to spray some WD40 in the bottom of this hole right here. I'm going to turn this counterclockwise and we're going to drain some coolant out. All right. Not going to film it cuz I'm really uncomfortable and I don't know how to get a good angle. So, if MaxJacks wants to send me a lift, hit me up. All right. So, I took this stupid brush guard off. You got three clips and they're like the plastic clips where you just get a plier in there and uh peel up on these and they pop out. You got like one, two, three. I only have three. And then four, five of them. And then you can get right in this crash bar. Right in this crash car. My light. Right in the crash bar here. You can reach that valve in there. See the liquid of the coolant coming out of there? So, see if I can get some better lighting for you. So, this valve right Oh, not wires. So, this valve right here, turn it counterclockwise if you're looking at it, and it'll piss out all your coolant. make sure you open your cap to get some air flow, physics or science, whatever. So, I'm going to let that drain for a little bit, probably drink a beer, and then I'm going to let it get below wherever I got to let it get below. Yeah. See, you can already hear it. It's getting pretty low already. Then we're going to pop this one off. Pop this one off. So, I'm going to let that drain for a little bit and we'll come back. All right. Now, we got to get to the hardest part here. This [ __ ] hose clamp. They do make a tool for this. I don't have it, but I do have little icon pliers. So, see if we can get this. Might be easier with a straight pliers. move that back there. And then I'm going to take this one off here. We're going to get this hose out of the way. These icons are nice. They're adjustable. Three-way adjustable. They're like the Snap-On ones, but cheaper. I might need to get a pick in here. This Jeep is pretty new, so I'm not too worried about it. Coolant is probably going to spill on the ground. Yep, just like that. Good thing I have nothing down there to catch it. much in there. >> All right. Now, I'm going to grab a Put those where you're going to lose them. So, instead of a star bit, I ended up just using a 10 mm socket to get in there cuz the it's Yeah, it's got T-25 on the inside. Nice. This is the real [ __ ] guys. So, I end up just using a 10 mil to get in there. So, I'll find that in a bit. This is our old old thermostat. I'm going to find that bolt and I'll throw them both up on the workbench and we'll look at them. All right. So, this this is the new one. is Molly. I got it off at AutoZone. I'll drop the link in the description below, but from what I've read is that this one and this one are the exact same one. And it's very important that you use the Mopar one. Um, it's very important you use the Mopar one because these are very temperamental. Now, if you're looking at them, you can see that these they're the same here, same here. And I know you're like, "Oh, well, he just said just use the Mopar one." And he ordered Molly. I'll show you something. So, if you look here, it says Molly, made in Mexico. If you look here, it's got the Mopar symbol. This is the old one. And the part number, look what they did here. They scratched it off. Scratched this off. So, this is the exact same as this one. Mopar. Mexico. Made in Mexico. Scratched off. Scratched off. Isn't that crazy? So instead of $60 and waiting 3 months on back order, whatever the hell it is, you can order this one for 30 on Autozone right now. Shipped to your door within 3 days. So that's cool. I mean, even your markings are all the same. 246 495. There three. I mean, everything is exactly exactly the same. I could throw this one. This is the old one. I could fill this in boiling water and get it up to temp and see if it opens. Um, I'm going to replace this, put it back on there, bolt it on, and we'll fill the system back up with coolant. So, I just want to show you guys that. I thought that was pretty cool. Um, I learned that on a form. I forget who who I heard that from, but um, I researched it for a long time. Figure out which one I wanted to order. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. 30 bucks. I'll link it in the bio or in the description below. So, hit it up. All right. So, you see the thermostat housing here. I cleaned it up. Got all the old gunk off of there. Um, just get all this old stuff out of there. Should be good. So, I'm going to bolt I got my two bolts here. 10 mm. Don't even do the 25 in there. It's a pain. Just do the 10 mm. Especially because they Well, I guess they are both T-25, but mine was not fitting. It might be a T30 or something. Maybe I was wrong, but just do a 10 mil. It's easier. [snorts] So, grab our new thermostat. So, it doesn't really click in there. It just kind of I know this camera's probably falling. I'm trying to work around it here. just hand start it is easier. You don't want to strip those out or anything. So you can torque them if you want. Set it to 106 inchbs. Not footbs, inch pounds. There you go. That's 106 right there. Just barely. You guys can hand tighten them, too. It's not that big of a deal. There you go. All right. So, this is pretty much the same as they went on. Get it to the lip. This one's good. We got something draining down there. So, I have to fill a lot. But, I'm gonna put this on here. And then I'll come back. So, I went ahead put this one back on with my pliers. I know my lighting is horrible. Put this one back on with my pliers. Put this one back on. These are torqued down to 106 inchbs. So now I'm going to climb under here and that valve that we did up in there, I'm going to turn that so it stops leaking. All right. So when we go to add coolant back in it, we want to open our bleeder screw. Now I'll show you on the old one where the bleeder screw is at. So here's our old one, and our bleeder screw is right here. Now, if you have a a right angle or an angle screwdriver, that works the best. What I ended up doing was I took a Phillips bit and a/4 in wrench, and I got to be very careful, but I can actually get this bleeder screw to open. Oh, see, I got to be careful. But anyways, I can get the bleeder screw to open. All right. So, it's super important, super super super important that you use Mopar or Peak original equipment technology. What you want to look for when you look for this stuff is the organic acid technology, OAT. So, 2012 and 2017 uses oat. 2012 or 07 to012 uses hot HO a T hybrid organic acid technology. Now if you mix them it can be bad. It turns it into like a goopy mess. And actually the other night I went to the gas station because my wife came home and she said that her check engine light was on. So I went to the gas station and bought just some crappy stuff. And when I went to clean this out today, all the bottom was full of solidified coolant. So I washed this out pretty well. So now I'm going to fill it with oat organic acid technology. You can pick this up on at AutoZone. It's Ford Jeep 2013 to present. So 13 to 17 oat 12 and below hot hybrid. So let's pour this in there. We're going to pour this right into this cap here. Use our funnel. We're going to fill that bad boy up. And we're going to fill this up until we see stuff coming out of our bleeder. I only bought two bottles of this, so about enough. So, it's purple is what it looks like when it's in the light when it's coming out, but it's actually orange. So, as you see, when I was filling it, we were actually See if I can get you guys in there. See it dripping here. I think we're coming right out of that bleeder screw. Close that bleeder up and we stop leaking. So that's how you know when this is full. So comes out of the bleeder screw and it was dripping everywhere. So I closed the bleeder. I'm going to go ahead and top this off. Oh, we're pretty uh we're pretty topped off. My camera is horrible. So we're pretty topped off. I'm going to go ahead and fill this up and then we're going to run the run the Jeep and I might have to pop this bleeder again and we'll get all the rest of the air out of there. It's important to bleed the system. So, I'm going to fill this up. This is pretty simple. Just fill it up and then when I start the Jeep and run it, I'll bleed it for you guys. So, I got it running. I connected connected the intake sensor so I don't feel a code. But I'm going to pop this bleeder. that. Look at us. See it there. So before I get everywhere, I'm going to go ahead and close that up. I'm going to pull I'm just going to pour a little bit more in here. See if this takes it. Taking it. So now I'm going to go since I have this cap open shrinking it. I'm going to go here. Bleed that. Okay, I'm going to tighten this up while the Jeep's running and we'll throw this back on. All right, so I'm going to leave this running. Get up to temp balancing that down there. That down there. Don't forget to put your hose in there. That should grab the screw for this. Don't forget two 10 mm. These would be easier with like a socket on them, but you can do it with a flathead. tighten that one. So, I'm going to let the Jeep get up to temp now and then we'll uh we'll see how the heat feels and we'll see how it's running. I did just do an oil change as well. So, I'm going to check my oil, make sure that I got enough oil in there. Um we'll go from there. So, it's reading 203 and at 204 it hit its mark and it's going to start going down now. 2011 199. See? So, once it hit 204, that thermostat opened and allowed the coolant to go through. And now it's going to regulate that temperature between 203 195 to 210 is the is the sweet spot depending on a lot of things. The garage is heated. Um we're not driving. We're not under load. So at 204 it opened up. It's going to drop us down to about 193ish. It's going to build it back up. So all right, that's it. We did the oil change today. We did the oil change today. Did the thermostat on the 2017 JK. Um, if you guys have any questions, just put in the comments section below. I check them. I'll read them. I'll answer it, help you out the best I can. Um, there are tons of YouTube videos on this already. I just wanted to make another one to add to my channel. Um, it is Jeep related content. So, if you guys like my channel, check out this video. There's definitely more to come where that is. MaxJacks. I could use a lift. Hit your boy up. Um, I'm going to clean up this mess. I'm going to finish this beer. And like always, you're not living unless you're living lost.