98 ZJ No Start Deep Water
05-28-2017, 03:46 PM
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Model: Cherokee
98 ZJ No Start Deep Water
This happened in a rainstorm we had a few days ago, but I've been having trouble getting the Jeep started. I was driving home from work and hit a deep puddle that I didn't see because it was raining so hard and the engine stalled out then died. It was running for 5 minutes or so while misfiring and stumbling out. The Jeep is a '98 ZJ with the 4.0 I6.
I was getting a spark still, so I figured it was a fuel issue. Dropped my gas tank and the plastic nut that holds the fuel pump in place wasn't on there and the pump was just kind of sitting on top of the tank. I drain the gas tank which was about half full with a decent percentage of water and other crud in there it looked like. Put everything back together and put 5 gallons of good gas into the tank with a little bit of Heet.
Jeep still doesn't start.
It is getting a spark and the flywheel turns when trying to start the Jeep but it is faster and higher pitched than normal. Occasionally it sounded like one cylinder wanted to fire but never did. I've tried starting with all of the plugs out to expel any water and the fuel pump still works.
What are my next troubleshooting options after this?
As a side note, my distributor might be a couple degrees off, could that have any effect on this? I was getting random intermittent misfires in a few cylinders before after an engine swap. They didn't happen often enough for me to worry about it.
edit: I have the Jeep running, took about 15 minutes of trying to start it, I think forcing the water out of the fuel lines. Tried a few times with the plugs out and then replaced them with new ones. Eventually the battery got down to about 9v, so I hooked it up to the diesel and spent about 10 more minutes trying to start it. Finally I got it to fire and it was sputtering quite a bit and running rough. It has since calmed down and is back to a smooth normal sounding idle. I think the problem was just water in my fuel and it seems fine right now. Going to let it idle for a bit and then test drive it to a station for a fill up.
Also I realized I posted this on the XJ section, not the ZJ. Sorry about that. Move it if necessary.
Is there anything I should be worried about when taking on water like that? I plan to drain the oil and replace it tonight to ensure there is no water in it. Everything seemed pretty dry when I was looking for the problem initially.
I was getting a spark still, so I figured it was a fuel issue. Dropped my gas tank and the plastic nut that holds the fuel pump in place wasn't on there and the pump was just kind of sitting on top of the tank. I drain the gas tank which was about half full with a decent percentage of water and other crud in there it looked like. Put everything back together and put 5 gallons of good gas into the tank with a little bit of Heet.
Jeep still doesn't start.
It is getting a spark and the flywheel turns when trying to start the Jeep but it is faster and higher pitched than normal. Occasionally it sounded like one cylinder wanted to fire but never did. I've tried starting with all of the plugs out to expel any water and the fuel pump still works.
What are my next troubleshooting options after this?
As a side note, my distributor might be a couple degrees off, could that have any effect on this? I was getting random intermittent misfires in a few cylinders before after an engine swap. They didn't happen often enough for me to worry about it.
edit: I have the Jeep running, took about 15 minutes of trying to start it, I think forcing the water out of the fuel lines. Tried a few times with the plugs out and then replaced them with new ones. Eventually the battery got down to about 9v, so I hooked it up to the diesel and spent about 10 more minutes trying to start it. Finally I got it to fire and it was sputtering quite a bit and running rough. It has since calmed down and is back to a smooth normal sounding idle. I think the problem was just water in my fuel and it seems fine right now. Going to let it idle for a bit and then test drive it to a station for a fill up.
Also I realized I posted this on the XJ section, not the ZJ. Sorry about that. Move it if necessary.
Is there anything I should be worried about when taking on water like that? I plan to drain the oil and replace it tonight to ensure there is no water in it. Everything seemed pretty dry when I was looking for the problem initially.
Last edited by redbaron4850; 05-28-2017 at 04:41 PM.
