playbass

For the past year that I have owned my XJ, it would occasionally take a very long crank for it to start up. It took me a while to find a pattern, and it occurs more frequently after I've driven for 30 minutes and it's good and warm or after it has sat outside my work all day in the hot sun. I noticed that during the winter, it rarely happened.

This week my XJ began not starting even after a long crank. I'll turn the key and hear it turn over for about 3 seconds and then it dies. The funny thing is, is that if I immediately turn the key again it starts right up and runs great.

I've read a lot on this forum about heat soak, the crankshaft position sensor and/or the fuel pump.

What is the best coarse of action to find out which combination of these problems I may be experiencing and fix it/them?

rockstomper92yj

Have you checked your injectors? Happened to me a while back I pulled them all left them on the fuel line, put a few pieces of paper down and turned the switch to on it will bleed out gas if one of the injectors is not working correctly. also what is your fuel pressure at? The check valve could be going out letting your fuel leak back into your tank. Can your hear your fuel pump prime? cycle your fuel pump three time with our cranking it over. If it starts on the third time the check valve could be part of the problem. Also have your wrapped the fuel rail with heat tape?

playbass

Today, it's been 100* and I've had to make a few trips. A trick I've been using that I found mentioned here a lot is to turn the key 'on' and listen for the fuel pump to turn. I do this 2 or 3 times. Afterwards, the Heep just starts right up.

This leads me to think the fuel pump, or at least the drain-back isn't working. But why would it seem to be heat related?

I am still going to check out the injectors and fuel pressure as the previous post mentions.

rockstomper92yj

wrap your fuel rail with some heat tape and might need to pull your fuel pump to get to the check valve either the gas is boiling out in the rail after driving it due to the exhaust manifold being right there or your gas pressure is flowing back in to the tank because the check valve is staying open and letting it flow back in.

playbass

On further inspection it doesn't seem to be heat related, just random. Sometimes it will start right up when cold in the morning, other times it will not. I measured the fuel pressure after turning the engine off and it went down to under 25psi in less than 10 minutes. The pressure seems a few psi low even when the engine was running. I ordered a new Bosch fuel pump kit, looking to install that soon.

PocketsEmpty

I'm interested to see how you make out with this. My '98 does the same thing, except mine always fires right up when it's cold. If I've been driving a while, and park and start it up while it's still hot, it sometimes will sputter out and I have to restart. But then once it's running, it runs great!

I had planned on replacing my fuel pump with the Bosch as well, mainly because my sending unit is bad and I rarely know how much gas I actually have, lol

playbass

It's very possible I could have a couple things going wrong... After checking the fuel pressure I think I can use a new pump module so I'm starting there.

playbass

Oh and the cheapest I found the Bosch was $120 on ebay. User e-herko.

playbass

So the e-herko Bosch pump turned out to be for a grand cherokee. I ended up getting a Carter. Installed the new pump and the hard starts went away. It now takes less than a second to start up.

PocketsEmpty

Good deal! I haven't heard much about the Carter pumps. Recently put a Denso pump in my girlfriends car, and her issues went away. Hopefully it lasts you a while. I anticipate my issues to go away with a new pump as well.

playbass

Carter seems to be everyone's second choice. I just didn't have the money nor time (they all seem to be on backorder) to wait for a Bosch pump.

centuryhouse

As a side note, what/where is the 'fuel rail'?

PocketsEmpty

The fuel rail is bolted on your intake manifold and is where the injectors are located.

I know Amazon had the Bosch pumps for a while, how much did you pay for the Carter?

playbass

Amazon now is on a 4-6 week back order for the Bosch pumps. I paid around 150$ for the Carter pump off of ebay (it was brand new still in the box.)

PocketsEmpty

Nice. And that's the whole module, right? Sending unit and all?