I bought a 89 XJ, with an abused motor,knowing I would be changing it soon.I got about 2k miles out of it and it snapped a rod at#6 and blew the date code off the block.I found a 91 4.0 rollover for replacement and installed the motor,trans and transfer case from the donor, using all the Renix components.At first start up,the motor seemed to run fine until I shift the trans into drive, then it dies like you turned off the ignition.While trying to diagnose,I have had several other problems like fuel pump relay chatter.Im thinking I missed hooking up a ground somewhere.I found a post from BlueXJ with a good diagram/picture of ground locations,and on that diagram it shows engine grounds coming from wiring harness to the ground location behind the dipstick,but i cant find these grounds on my harness anywhere.The weird thing is,when it will start it will pull a load in reverse,then when you shift to drive it will sometimes idle then die when you step on the gas,or it will die when you shift to drive.Any Thoughts?

 

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You should have an engine ground attached to the bottom bolt of the dipstick mounting bracket and another from the cylinder head to the body at the rear of the head, there is another one somewhere that I never found. I ran another heavy gage ground from the top bolt of the dipstick mounting bracket to the body which solved a bunch of gremlins in my '88 XJ. Also clean up every spade connector that you can find along with all the harness connections. When these vehicles start to age, grounding problems are common!

 

gonna bump this up ive had a similar issue with no luck