cherokee having power issues?
 

I just bought a 94 cherokee 4.0 HO 4x4 5spd and I can't tell if it has major power loss or if it's just normal. Through 1st and 2nd gear on flat ground it moves alright but when going up a hill I lose major speed and need to downshift and keep it at pretty high rpms. For example traveling up a hill at 60mph in 4th gear I start losing speed, fast. until I need to downshift to 3rd around 40mph. This is my first cherokee so I don't know if this is normal. I have a 2.3 Ford Ranger that performs just about the same going up the hill maybe better. So is this normal? or do I have a problem?

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

DO a real good tune-up. Maybe a new free-flowing exuast I have a jeep just like yours and it aint that bad.

have to agree with finney... that is not normal

I forgot to mention it has 180,XXX mile on it,could the engine just be tired? It's also about a 4% grade road

Mine has 300,000 and aint like that.

Definitely true, mine has 186K and still runs excellent oil pressure on 10w30 oil... You could have a worn out motor as a culprit but you would have an incredible amount of blow-by if that was the case. Just take the oil cap off while it is running and see if you can feel a lot of air or see a fair bit of smoke blowing out. Also, look at the air filter... mine will usually get a very small amount of oil on the very edge of it (Just fixed that by cleaning out the ccv elbow in the valve cover) if it has a lot of blow-by, the filter will have an excessive amount of oil in it and that would tend to indicate low compression. If tis is what you find, next step would be to physically check the compression with a tester (can be rented from AutoZone, maybe Advance also for a refundable deposit) I have done so on a few occasions and suggest using a loaner if you don't own one... It saves you from just having money tied up in tools that you will rarely use. If I were in your place, I think that would be the next thing I would check. Hope that helps

I checked out my exhaust today and it sounds like my cat is in pieces(it rattles BAD), but I couldn't get the the cat off because of so much rust. We tried a sledgehammer and an air hammer to try to pry it off but it wouldn't budge. Any suggestions to make this easier to remove?

well if your cat is bad you will need to replace it so just cut it of with a saws all