But my thermostat gasket, er...
Well it just doesn’t.
Easy fix, just annoying because I literally just relaced that gasket. But I did it on the dark and probably pinched it or something. And now my antifreeze mix is all screwed up because my roommate when he came to rescue me off the side of the highway brought a jug of concentrate instead of a mixed jug. But whatever, it’s home.
In a way this was a good thing, though. I’ve confirmed my temperature gauge actually works. I wasn’t 100% on whether the gauge and sending unit would be compatible because despite it being the same manufacturer, it’s different years and different models, and the plugs didn’t match. The MJ came to me with a full cluster but an idiot light sender, so it didn’t work prior to now. And now because of that gasket I’m guessing, it wasn’t quite building pressure properly so it wasn’t hitting operating temperature.
But it turns out what I suspected was true, the brakes just needed bled. I pretty much totally replaced the fluid, having run 2L of DOT-3 through the system. It'll lock at least the fronts on the highway now, which beats the hell out of the previous gentle deceleration under braking. I did notice however that the master cylinder is leaking from the secondary piston back into the reservoir, so I'll be needing to relace that at some point too now. But hey. I'm driving a MJ again which is friggen awesome.