Ok, so I own a 1988 Jeep that I've been fixing for some time now. The original owner told me he had been doing things to it... but I think he meant HADN'T been doing things to it; it's had a lot of things that were still stock from 1988 on it.

So far I've replaced the header gasket, vacuum assembly, battery, alternator, all the spark plugs and wires, the water pump, all the coolant hoses, the resevoir, the thermostat, the starter motor, the distributor cap, the fuel filter, and the muffler and cat. Oh, and the headlights (that's an issue for another time... I can only run with one of those connected at the moment or the car cuts off. >_<)

Recently, it began giving me issues with starting. It would start and run fine, until I turned it off. Then it would refuse to start for a while, and finally turn over. Until the NEXT time I turned it off, when it would go right back to resisting re-starting. I took it to a parts store and had the battery and alternator tested (both working fine) and the guy there suggested that it was either the ignition coil or the fuel pump, or something else along those lines.

I was going to let it slide for a bit longer, since it seemed to be something that wasn't *absolutely* going to stop me right away. As expected though, the next time the motor got turned off, it refused to turn over again. Eventually someone came along and tried giving me a jump, which worked, so I took a guess that trouble maker was the ignition coil.

Got one the next day, and installed it. There was an unholy mess underneath the existing coil, tons of corrosion, a small desert worth of sand, and apparently several dozens of generations of spiders had been using the space as a breeding area... the connectors were all webbed to everything else with the remains of spider eggs. I figured between the corrosion, the spider webbing and the sand all touching the contacts, it was little wonder the coil had been unable to get enough spark to the engine to make it work, then cleaned things out and put the new one in. Three tests to see if it worked, three easy starts. Problem solved, right? I wish.

A couple of days later I go someplace, and when I come back out to start the car... nothing. It does just like it had been doing before, refusing to start. So I finally get it running and it runs very erratically... cutting off after going into a driveway, and shutting off a second time at a turn light. What the....?

Does anyone have any ideas what might be going on? IS it the fuel pump that's not working right? I'm wondering if maybe when I changed the filter something got into the fuel line and is now clogging things up or something? It had been on there for 24 years...

Could it be something else, and if so, does anyone have any ideas what? I've checked just about everything I know to check on time and again, and there's no sign of anything that would stop the car from starting up. If anyone has any ideas, they would be greatly appreciated.