alpine5575

I have a 96 xj that I have had some electrical problems with in the past, so it makes me think that it is probably a bad sensor or a corroded wire somewhere. I just started having a problem about a week ago, when accelerating up a hill it would start to buck and kick like I was running out of gas. It now seems to be getting worst, sometimes doing it while cruising at a steady speed, and stalling when I attempt to take off from a stopped position. The previous owner told me he just changed plugs and wires recently, which I beleive he did, but I decided to have a look and pulled the plugs. The plugs looked like brand new as does the wires, so I put some anti seize on the threads, some dielectric grease in the boots and reinstalled the plugs and wires. I also pulled the boot from the coil and put grease in both ends too. Well the next day it ran perfect, both to work and on the way home never stumbled. That made me think maybe its a week coil and it helped with the grease. Well this morning on the way to work it starts again, bucking and stalling. I barely made it to work. At break time I went out popped the hood, wigged the cam position sensor wire going in the distributor, and popped the boot off the coil and put back on. On the way home from work it ran perfect again, never stumbled. Now Im thinking it has to be the coil or the cam position sensor. I pulled the coil and did an OHM test and it read in spec from what I have found on how to test them. I pulled the cam position sensor and have "infinite ohms" probing any two pins. My question is should these read "infinite ohms" or should I get a resistence reading probing the pins ?? The sensor did look a little dirty, so I got some electric cleaner spray and got a 30z tube of dielectric grease to apply to the electrical connections.

Anybody have any Ideas on what it might be, its starting drive me nuts and I dont want to go replacing parts that are suspect but not sure if they are bad or not. It does seem to only happen when the engine warms up.

alpine5575

Anybody, have any ideas ??

alpine5575

This forum has a lot of great help, and it doesnt take long for a thread to get lost with no answers. I just thought i would let you guys and gals know what I have tried and has worked fine for the past 2 days { knock on wood though cause I know something is weak and about to give out }. Instead of replacing a coil or a cam position sensor, I invested in some electric spray cleaner and dielectric grease at Advanced Auto Parts. I disconnected most of the electrical plugs I could find in the engine compartment, and the Crank Position Sensor plug under the oil pan ( I think this was the crank sensor, not sure though } and sprayed with the cleaner. I then let these air dry and applied the grease to the connections, plugging and unplugging them a few times to work in the grease. I hope this is all it was, a bad connection, keep your fingers crossed for me !!

Mikewv78

I think I am having the same problem with mine. Did you ever figure something concrete?

rangermonroe

Mine was exhibiting similar behavior.

It was my O2 sensor.

Mikewv78

I have changed that sensor, as well as the coolant temp sensor and the intake air temp sensor. nothing's helped so far. The jeep runs great until it gets warmed up. then it doesn't want to hardly run at all.

Click-Click-Pull

I've run across sim problems with my XJ. First time it took me a while to find and was intermittent at first then would all out die at the stop light and turned out a short on the harness side of the distributor plug under the wire loom. Wires got hotter and hotter and melted together. Check that or for any other connection problems or shorts.
Next pull your plugs and see if any look like they're fouled. Mine had a bad injector on #6 and would run rich in that cylinder and foul out the O2 and then resulted in a crappy running XJ at operating temp especially under load. Just a couple ideas.. Good luck and post if you find something~ this site only works if you follow thru and post finds and fixes