started out good. Saturday I swapped the trans, had a freshly rebuilt one with new converter sitting here a while for it, since it has had a couple of leaks and 4th gear has been intermittent in wanting to work.... I rebuilt the one that came from my '93 (gone now, wrecked) last year and when I wanted to swap them out the trans in it started working like it is supposed to. so I hung onto the rebuilt as a spare. It started acting stupid again last fall when the weather started to get cool, figured I'd swap them over the winter since I drive the Wrangler more in winter anyways.
My son's truck has been down so he has been driving my '92 for a couple of weeks. I got it back from him Sat morning and the original trans was acting stupid so I figured "OK now's the time". so I swapped the trans Saturday along with a new trans mount, all 3 U joints (original, with 203K miles, rear one felt a lil rough) and carrier bearing. all went smooth except for the exhaust flange bolts on the Y pipe, being a royal pain without a 3rd hand.....especially the passenger side back one. Try fishing a flat and lock washer up there and then getting a nut started, the frame juts out in just the exact wrong spot to get my hand in there haha....
Anyways got it all done, just had to stop Sunday morning and pick up a couple of muffler clamps, put them on, fill it with new fluid and test drive it.....
that all went fine, put about 40 miles on it, and went to use it to pick up my wife from work.
While there, I was a few minutes early so I waited further out in the parking lot opened the hood and played with the throttle ("kickdown") cable a bit, everything was fine.
I pulled up to the door and sat there about 2-3 minutes (max), the wife comes out and starts having a "heart attack" and pointing under the truck. My water pump had just blown since pulling up to the door and it wasn't leaking anything slow. It was POURING out,
so we went about a mile, got something to eat, while I watched the puddle grow while sitting at the restaurant....weird, usually they don't "blow" that badly all at once, they seep and dribble slow especially at first. Not this one.
Stop at Oreillys about another 2 miles away, for a new water pump. saw the heat gauge go to about 3/4 scale on the way to Oreillys.
Sat there long enough for the kid to bring me a jug of used antifreeze that I was planning to take and dump into the barrel at work, no sense buying new for it to **** right out....
As I pour it in, it comes right out as fast as I try to fill it. about 6 miles from home. Poured about half of my jug in (2-1/2 gallon jug) or rather thru the engine.
Made a run for it, had sat there long enough for the engine to have cooled down, made it about halfway home and pulled over.... poured the rest of my antifreeze thru the engine, went in the gas station across the road and they filled it up with water, poured about half of that thru, knowing that none of this was reaching the heads....... none getting higher in the block than the water pump. Luckily I was able to avoid most of the traffic lights on the way to that point, 1 more to go thru... fortunately I found that one green. made it home, gauge never got over 3/4 (though I know that the temp sender doesn't read air temp very well), got the pump off and the timing cover (I had noticed a very slight seep there while doing the trans, higher up than where the water was pouring out of) so "might as well" fix that too while I'm in there.... it hadn't been consuming antifreeze at all to this point the pump blew.....) Got it down to the chain, chain and gears off, cleaned old gaskets and block was STILL warm to touch at that point...... crossing my fingers the head gaskets survived, a modern car engine would have been cooked..... one minor overheat these days means major carnage..... I hate new cars!

 

I have good faith your top end should be good after the details. I did worse to my 318. And worse the other day to the 360. Neither ever missed a beat once fixed.

 

I remember 2 water pump issues within my own family that wound up quite catastrophic.... one was an old '82 Plymouth Gran Fury (same car as a Diplomat) with a Slant 6 of all things, was my Dad's. this was about 30 years ago, middle of summer... I borrowed the car one nite after he got home from work and didn't go far, came back home because the water pump bearings were howling. My Dad said something about "waiting til it went bad the rest of the way". well about a week later it did... and again I was driving. the bearings went totally, fan hit the radiator, water puked out like this Dakota did, I limped it home like 8 miles or so.... was on my at to parts store to return a core of something else I had been working on and it blew on the highway about a mile before the offramp. I shut it off, put it into Neutral and coasted, let it cool, started it up and coasted, and repeated this til I got to the parts store which was like 1/2 a mile off the highway. I then went home the same way. start it up, get up to 60, throw it into Neutral, shut off and coast. and I stopped and waited a couple of times along the road for it to cool off..... still wound up with a cracked head and smoked tranny from it besides the trashed radiator because my Dad thought I "replaced parts too soon, before they really needed it" and would not listen to me when I 1st told him of a problem with his car,

the other one was just a few years ago, nother inline 6, this one a 4.0 Jeep Gr Cherokee. my nephew's vehicle. He had been out in Conneticut when his water pump started to leak, I got a call when he was in about Ohio asking about an "idler pulley gasket" We know there is no such thing, but he is an idiot. He told me it was leaking but not what he was leaking. Oil? Water? ATF? He would not answer me.
About a week later I got a pleading begging call on a Sunday to replace his water pump, he had the part.... but I could not talk him into spending $7 on a thermostat, even though I had to replace the thermostat housing because it was all pitied up and I was afraid it would not seal up..... NOW he tells me he has been adding "a gallon of antifreeze a day" but wouldn't tell me how long this had been going on or whether he was adding to the radiator or to the bottle.....
I put the water pump on, he bought the cheapest reman he could find besides.... this kid is a piece of work to be sure....
About a month later the radiator blew out the plastic tank, and he roached the head gasket besides.... cracked the head quite badly in multiple places, and 3 of the 6 pistons looked like torch-cut steel---- before I pulled the engine and dismantled it!
That one took a new head and a total complete engine overhaul including boring out and new pistons to fix..... and he blamed the vehicle for being a POS.... his stupidity had nothing to do with the damage done..... according to him... the Jeep was just nickling and diming him to death.....with no explanation..... my brother (his Dad) and me both tried to explain things to him, wasted breath...... I asked why he didn't have it fixed in CT and he said that "I didn't understand..... cost of living is at least double what it is in Illinois".....
Cmon now.... even at triple the cost of having it done here it would have been cheaper than a total and complete engine rebuild and it would have cost less downtime Cannot explain anything to him. he knows "all"......

 

had an old Mercedes inline 6. My wife rear-ended somebody and punctured a upper radiator hose and then she drove about 16 to 20 miles with the coolant pouring out. It finally cut off at the exit I had it towed to the garage to be checked out. The experience mechanic said " it's done for sure" I put in coolant and a new hose and drove the car for about 10 more years with no more coolant issues didn't even change the thermostat.

 

back together, new timing chain, water pump and T stat.... runs smooth as can be but smokes like an old steam engine.... I drove it twice, watching the gauges the whole while (about 20 miles total between the 2 drives) and let it run in the driveway in between while I tended to a blower motor issue on the Wrangler, every time I had to slow down or stop and then take off I got a smoke show... (it was dark out... in the streetlights it was very light color) and the tailpipe is almost pure white inside now..... I think we all know what that means.... though it did seem to have diminished quite a bit when I got home from the 2n drive.... I know what I'll be doing when I get home today from work..... I have everything I'll need to do head gaskets, as long as I don't find any cracks in the heads.....

 

crossed fingers.... a lot less smoke/steam today, no milkshake in oil, coolant holding its level, pulled plugs, a look in the plug holes with a borescope didn't turn up anything weird, drove another 40-50 miles afterwards to play with throttle cable-to-trans adjustment.... wait and see what happens.
I already have all the gaskets on hand (I keep a couple sets since I have 3 trucks with the same engine) and called the machine shop for quotes for a magnaflux job, was all ready to start pulling them when I got home from work but I'm gonna wait and see..... hoping the smoke was all the leakage/spillage finally burning itself off......

 

yup/ been driving a week since the water pump went out, had to put the valve body in out of the orig trans, trans shifts like it should now, no overheat, no leak, no more smoke.... whew
did seem to suck down the most recent tank of gas though, more so than any since I got this truck 2 years ago..... I was hoping that getting the OD 4th gear and lockup "consistently" working right would make that go up instead..... back to where it was before the OD started flaking out on the old trans at least.....

got all the gaskets on hand for the head job, just in case..... Rock Auto had a deal on some "private label" ones (had Car Quest brand on them, who has since been bought out by Advance Auto) about a year ago, so I took advantage then, on a bunch of misc goodies for these trucks....