fuzzydicerule

Hey guys, im currently in the market for an XJ, and i had some questions. I went and checked out/test drove an XJ yesterday. (a 1995)It seemed pretty solid, drove well, (it has a locker and from what i understand about them it seemed normal, also feels like it has a set of gears, its lifted about 4 inches and has 265/75/15's) and there appeared to be no real rust sans a hole in the passenger side floor (car was lifted and i took a nice long look under the thing) That doesnt really bother me too much, as everything else, drivers floor, frame rails, etc was solid. We came to an agreed price, and we told them to take it for a smog check, and if it passed, we had a deal.

Id imagine you can see where im going with this...

Now the purpose of this thread, mainly is to diagnose the car, im pretty interested in it, because ive had trouble finding a 6cyl/5spd/4x4 xj around here for a good price, and im cursed with being an extremely nice person, and even if i dont buy the car, i want to help them get it to a point where it would be able to sell. The car is originally from Pennsylvania, and is now in So Cal, so this is probably the first time any real pressure has been put on the car to pass smog...

The car failed pretty bad. In all three measurements it was over. and came back as a gross polluter. but the NO is where im a little stumped

Hydrocarbons Carbon Monoxide NOX
Max: GP: Meas max: GP: Meas max; GP: meas
15 89 278 154 .66 1.96 .88 517 1550 1580
25 38 228 115 .56 2.10 .89 519 1600 1417


From what it looked like, the exhaust was old, probably stock, maybe with an aftermarket muffler. And they really dont know what the maintenance was like on the truck. My first starting point would be to Change out the Catalytic converter, and the o2 sensor, but to my knowledge, that would only really affect the HC and CO readings, not the massively over spec NOx readings...

Now when i was driving, i did notice a sort of whistle at what sounded like roughly 2500 rpms. I chalked that down to the open element filter, but maybe there is a leak on the intake somewhere causing the high NO reading?

Is there anything you jeep experts can chime in with on what would cause all three measurements to be high? im not the most experienced person in the world and ive tried to avoid smog as much as humanly possible, but like i said, im pretty interested in the car, and if this turns out to be an easy fix, it would make everyones life a little easier.

Thanks for bearing with my first post BTW, and thank you for future helpful responses (hopefully)


edit number 5, according to the owner, he drove about 15 miles for the smog check, but was waiting for quite a while before it got checked. could this cause it to fail so badly?

fuzzydicerule

Okay, i was just informed that the cat is in fact hollow. am i right in thinking that a gutted cat combined with a bad o2 sensor could cause it to not be terrible on the HC and CO, but be way off on the NO? (in my mind at least, perhaps the o2 is bad and is reading too rich, and therefore the computer is leaning out the mixture, raising the NO emissions, while keeping the HC and CO down?

trans_am7935

yes the cat will make it blow that bad if it is gutted, and O2 sensor, also looks like you have a misfire your your timing is off pretty bad. replace your plugs, wires, cap and rotor. btw what part of sandiego are you in?

fuzzydicerule

im in North county off the 56. Like i said, i dont own the car yet (im guessing you skimmed it and didnt catch the part about me looking at the car)

Honestly, i think it wouldnt be that difficult to get it to pass, thats what i was planning on was all the tune up stuff, and the o2 and cat. The car drove fine and didnt appear to have a misfire and it idled fine.

Out of curiosity, what would you pay for a car like that?

170,000 miles, Rustys 4(.5?) inch lift, 265/70/15 tires, decent interior, 4.0/5speed/NP231, only real rust issue is the passenger floor?

trans_am7935

well since it is a cali car, and it failed smog...i would tell him you will give him $500 for it and go from there. what is he asking for it? just point out all the bad stuff and you should get it for pretty cheap.

fuzzydicerule

you either really skimmed my post, or im a bad story teller, lmao, its a pennsylvania car.

i forgot to add it has a locker in the rear too. He had it listed on C/L for 2800, and i had offered him 2500 on the grounds that it passed the sniffer. However i think im gonna sleep on it and keep looking around

fuzzydicerule

Which, by the way, since you are presumably somewhere nearby, do you know anyone selling a 5 speed, 4x4 XJ? preferrably for under 2500...

trans_am7935

check out these links:

http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/pts/1922953085.html
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/cto/1918921607.html

fuzzydicerule

Sweet, i emailed the 2nd one a couple days ago, dunno, im looking for more of a complete car, but i guess i might go check it out...

that first one is confusing me, it says 5 speed good auto trans...

trans_am7935

yea good luck, i picked up my 94 5 speed with 145000 miles on it for $800. i got lucky.