I plan on repairing it but am curious is anyone knows what it's purpose is. I'm hoping it has something to do with my lukewarm heat or my drop in RPMs at idle. *crosses fingers*

It's in the rear of the engine bay and is attached to something that goes into what appears to be a junction for a bunch of coolant hoses.

the pics alway upload sideways or upside down. sorry about that!

 

That's the valve that controls the climate inside the jeep. Fix it and your heating will work

It control how much of hot water that goes in the heat core I'm guessing since it broke and the setting stuck on halfway so you get only little hot water inside the core, this producing lukewarm heat

 

It goes to your heater control valve. What ever you do be very careful when you mess with the valve. The are known to break real easy. Personally I would plug the vacuum line and bypass the heater control valve all together befor you start to leak on you. Believe me sooner or later it will leak on you and hopefully it wont leave you stranded or over heated from loosing all of your coolant.

 

Thanks. I fixed the line and heat actually blows hot now. It takes a while to warm up (about 20 minutes to a half hour) but before I was getting nothing but luke warm air. My 95 XJ blows hot after running for like 5 to 10 minutes but my new XJ seems run cooler overall.

 

RTorrez's advice is very sound.

Those valves just go kabloowey at the most inopportune times and can actually cause poor flow to the heater core in the meantime. There is NO down side of eliminating it and plugging the line.

Sounds like you need to replace your thermostat. Get one from the dealer and your heater will work better than your other Jeep.

 

Actually, no.

The blend air door under the dash diverts air over the heater core or evaporator core as requested by the sliding ****.

The "heater control valve" only serves one function: Shutting off coolant flow to the heater core during AC operation.

 

the odd thing is i did replace the t-stat. i put a 185 in it as that's all the dealer had in stock at the time. it's a stant which i questioned them about as i expected mopar but was told they no longer make t-stats for 96's. apparently mopar is going to stop producing all parts for cherokees from what the dealer told me and they can't order all parts anymore. it's also possible my area dealer just sucks lol. they sell jeeps and hyundais which i find very odd but i digress.

 

Sounds like swapping the 185 for a 195 thermastat should help the heat issue. Might as well eliminate that heater control valve at the same time.

 

Stant is NOT their supplier.

You should get a 83501426AD or 52028186 from them.

 

I replaced the t-stat with a mopar branded one and the heat now works I guess all t-stats are not created equal.

 

No guessing about it.