sobczak19

first time jeep owner and I love it till now

Hi I have just bought a 1997 cherokee 4L 5 spd 4x4, last night we did some late night off roading and I burried it in a swap pit, the interior filled with water and might have reached the fuse pannel, I have currently drained the water and have run into some problems, when the truck is cold it dosent want to sart or idle with out giving it gas when it warms up its fine but thats not the mind blower, my rear defogger will not shut off and my horn is gets stuck on when I either open my door or turn the dome lights on. also my battery seems to die, not completly just until the starter clicks. I just chaged the battery and it did the same thing, I just put new battery terminals on cleaned up some of the grounds

please could some body give me a hand or some advice with this

Its driving me crazy

k2keith

I'm suprised that is the only problems you have after what have described. Rear defog and horn is relatively easy, at worst you can always disconnect them if you cannot sort that out as neither are critical. The battery running down is probably due to something electrical shorted out that is stuck running. For instance, I once had a car with a power antenna where the motor stuck on with key off and totally drained the battery. I only found it by searching for what was shorting and draining the battery.

There is electrical in the form of fuses and relays in the cabin on the kick panels and under the hood.

Start / idle issues can be a variety of things, I would suspect sensors that either got swamped and are still wet or got knocked around while you were in the muck.

Perhaps others with chime in with more specific advice that I cannot give because I have yet swamped any.

sobczak19

so I iam still stumped, my altenator is reading 13.2 volts and I think that is kinda low, and if the altenator was in water and some how got damaged could this explain my draining battery problem?
also I have unplugged my horn and defrogger including the fuses

cobiray

Based on alternator location, it is highly possible it has been damaged by the water.

I think some parts counters (Auto Zone, O'Reilly, etc) can check the alternator out for you to see if it is bad.

motorheadmoe

check your air filter and make sure it dident get wet and close off your air it has happend to me twice

mcssls

defroster and horn probably run off relays, under the hood? relays may be wet and shorted or shot

sobczak19

well I fianally fixed it for now
my altenator was reading 13.1 volts
so I removed it and there was about two pounds of mud on it so I got cleaned up then got it tested turns out the altenator was fine reading 14.1volts and when I put it back in it was reading 14volts on the dot and battery draining problem has been fixed
apparently the diodes were wet and this could happen
but for the horn and defogger I just unplugged the horns and removed the fuses currently no problem yet
besides no dash light since I installed my stereo thinking its a fuse

thank you all for the replies
happy mudding and crawling to you all