Hey everyone,

I purchased my cherokee about a month ago and have been working on getting her maintenance up to date. The PO took OK care of her, not the best. It's a 97 Country 4.0 Auto, 159K miles.

So far engine wise, I have done:

-Distributor cap and rotor, well a whole new distributor but thats a different story. ( dist cap screw snapped off in distributor housing!)
-New Champion copper plugs .045 gap
-Valve cover gasket
-Air filter
-Changed the oil, Chevron 10W-40 & WIX filter
-The gas has a bottle of Amsoil P.I. in it, only about 50 miles since this addition

-Not engine related but it has new 02 sensors front and rear and a new cat/muffler. It had 02 codes when I bought it, the cat was ratteling like crazy and the muff had 2 small holes in it. The header looks good though, no cracks that i can see.

My main question is, how does your cherokee Idle? Mine seems to have kind of a eratic idle. It will bounce up and down about 50 RPM, between 600-650 RPM idle, is this normal? It seems to shake the whole truck.

I know the 4.0 is not the smoothest engine alive, but our 88 that we used to have ran much smoother.

I am going to clean the TB this weekend, maybe that will help?

 

Mine seems to have a bit of a twitch to it while idling. You cant really see it on the tach but I can feel it. I need to tune mine up a bit (cap/rotor/plugs/wires) and see if that helps.

 

Yes, clean the throttle body inside and out including the IAC. I would also ispect all around the intake manifold and hose connections for any vacuum leaks.

 

Mine will bounce between 600-750 RPM. I plan to seafoam it and clean the throttle body on it and see what that does?

 

Mine has a little wiggle now-and-then.

It's not a big enough deal for me to even fault-trace.

 

Yeah if a vacuum is unplugged thatll make it idle higher. Had it happen to me and could hear a "ssss" sound. Turned out to be a vacuum on the intake mani and that calmed it down.

 

Is that the correct plug gap - .045? I was thinking .035 but could be wrong.

 

mine idles around 700rpm with no issues now since i replaced my fuel pump a couple of weeks ago

 

I'll let you know once I get mine running (tonight- got my fingers X'd).
:-)

 

Mine idles @ 600 rpm's whether its in gear or not (its an AW4) and has never stumbled once since I got her with 211,600 miles. Just purchased the Accel tuneup kit from Quadratec for $69 and plan on doing it tomorrow...Tj

 

According to AZ and my FSM its .035...Tj

 

however it wants

 

haha. x2

 

I have a click when mine idles

 

Yeah, you guys are right, plug gap is .035. Pulled a plug last night and verified they are @ .035, I was going off memory on the .045 number.

Do the two plastic elbows coming out of the valve cover do anything besides let the top end breathe?

When I replaced the VCG last week I sprayed them down with engine degreaser and cleaned them the best I could. I couldn't get them out of the gromet's, was scared of snapping them off. They were pretty nasty with oil. No oil on the air filter though.

I am going to clean the throttle body including the sensors tomorrow night. Cleaning the trottle body with TB cleaner, can I just clean the sensors with electronic connector cleaner?

Also pulling the NSS to clean it, I have the P0705 code, no backup lights but starts fine every time. I did notice that it sometimes won't shift into overdrive. Its pretty random though, I will be driving at 60 MPH @ almost 3K RPM. I come to a light and stop, get back up to 60 and it will be @ 2K or a little below..?? Does the NSS allow the AW4 to shift into overdrive?

I did drain and refill the trans fluid two times now, it shifts much smoother since then. And yes , I checked the level @ operating temp with truck in PARK. When I got the truck the fluid was dark but not burnt smelling. The trans shifts nice and firm before and after the fluid change.