Need Help. 89 Cherokee Overheated now Loud Clacking noise when Accelerating

I have a 89 Cherokee with about 180k miles on it. It still runs well but the other day it over heated badly on me. My coolant line had sprung a leak. Now when accelerating I am getting a very loud clacking noise from the front of the engine. It only seems to be when accelerating from a stop or at lower speeds, it tends to fade away as I get up around 35+ mph. Anyone have any idea what this could be? Is it related to the jeep overheating or could it have been caused by the over heating?

It could be related. Have someone hit the gas for you while you look under the hood (in park of course) and see if you can locate the source of the noise.

Does it make the noise under a heavy load - like if you are in 2nd gear and floor it at 35 mph?

Sorry to make my first post a bump, but this subject applies to me and I know better than to create a new post for something already talked about.
I have a 1994, 2-door, 4.0, 4x4.
I have that rapid clacking sound EVERY time I start the Jeep and try to accelerate too quickly. Once the vehicle has warmed up, that sound is completely gone. It doesn't matter if the Jeep has been off for 30 seconds or 30 hours. That sound is there the first time or two I accelerate from a stop. The clacking gets louder, faster and higher pitched directly in correlation with my acceleration.
Please tell me someone's heard of this!

P.S. - This whole forum is a godsend. I've learned so much today. I've experienced the Death Wobble and now I know where to start with it. I also have the rough idle problem, and I feel confident I'll be able to fix it as well. Thank you to everyone that posts here!

Welcome to AF, unlike most other message boards we won't chastise you for starting a new thread if the subject's been talked about before. As everyone on here knows every XJ has their own quirks and most of the time the fix for one won't be the fix for another, so instead of resurrecting a thread that's been dead for almost a year please start a new one with all pertinent info and the problems you're having. As for your problem I would start by checking your oil pressure as it sounds like the oil pump is either starting to show it's age and not get the oil up to the rockers and such as fast as it should and keeping it there or the oil pick up screen on the pump inside the oil pan might be getting clogged. Could be a good idea to run some seafoam oil system cleaner through it at the next oil change and see if that helps any.

unlike most other message boards we won't chastise you for starting a new thread if the subject's been talked about before. As everyone on here knows every XJ has their own quirks and most of the time the fix for one won't be the fix for another, so instead of resurrecting a thread that's been dead for almost a year please start a new one with all pertinent info and the problems you're having.

Ah. Gotcha. Every forum is different. Know I know. :-)

I'm going to go pick up some of that Sea Foam right now, add it to my oil and run a bit throught the throttle body. I looked in there yesterday and it looks pretty clean, but it couldn't hurt to "squeak" it up a little.

I appreciate your reply, and thanks for welcoming me here!