I Marked the distributor, then marked the cap with a blue line. The red line on the cap is where the old rotor was pointing, the blue line on the cap is where this rotor is pointing. Sure looks on to me.

Still no start. I have tried starting fluid again but with no luck.

Jeep gives me the codes 12 and 55
12-“Memory to controller has been cleared within 50-100 engine starts.”
55-“End of codes”

I AM ABSOLUTELY STUMPED HERE. What could the problem be????

PLEASE HELP!!!!

 

For some reason it cut off first part of the message. I was driving at it died, almost acted like it was out of gas, but the fuel rail has pressure. Crank no start.

Replaced Crank Position Sensor, Coil, and Distributor. Tried many times with starting fluid.

When I pulled the distributor, the gear was stripped. Cam Shaft side is fine though. No sign of wear.

replaced distributor still no start. Please help.

 

I should also mention that it has strong, consistent spark.

 

What about compression?

 

I am unsure about compression, but I don’t believe it would just die out of no where like it did. It ran great. Now it doesn’t even try to start. I think it has something to do with timing.

 

Could pop off the timing cover and take a look. That may be why the distributor gear was stripped too? But you have already eliminated fuel and spark from the equation. Luckily not an interference engine if so!

 

If there is a chance that the distributor gear being stripped caused the distributor to lose its sync with the rest of the engine, you won't be able to install a new distributor's rotor to the same location as the old rotor. You need to rotate the engine to Top Dead Center (TDC) of the compression stroke and then index the rotor to the correct clocked location. However, looking down the hole the distributor came out of, what is the condition of the distributor's drive gear of the camshaft? If it is anything other than perfect, a picture might be good.

 

I already timed it perfect with TDC. I rotated the Harmonic Balancer until the notch lined up with the 0 mark. Then lined up the rotor in the distributor perfectly with Cylinder one as shown in photos above.

Although I didn’t get a photo while I was in there, I checked the cam gear and it looks great. No noticeable wear.

 

Do you think the timing chain could have hopped a tooth?

 

Forgive me if I'm being remedial (captain obvious), but I want to make sure you understand that there are two times the engine will show TDC while it rotates from exhaust stroke to compression stroke, but the distributor rotor needs to aim at #1 on the compression stroke.

 

Thank you for the clarification. Yes I believe I was on the compression stroke, but now I am questioning myself. I took out the spark plug and thought I felt pressure. I’m gonna have to go check again.

 

That could explain the engine suddenly stopping and not firing back up if there is fuel, spark, and compression. But I’d still verify compression is where it should be.

I had a heck of a time getting my distributor installed correctly. When it was installed a tooth off I would backfire out of the intake while cranking.

 

Oh my goodness. I feel like an idiot. I was wrong before. I lined up true TDC and timed it. Works perfectly. Thanks so much. I can’t believe I missed that.

 

problem solved. Thanks for chiming in.