My distibutor gear went bad, as in it was so old that most of the teeth were ground down and the gear itself was out of whack. Took it to my mechanic and he put a new gear in and it ran fine. Better than ever actually.

 

That''s just it, I put another distributor in there with a good looking gear on it.

 

Did u check the timing ?

 

Check timing and also check your firing order.

 

Not sure I understand, everything I've read is you can't adjust timing because A) the computer does it, and B) the distributor can't turn...so what do you do there?

 

disregard timing - check your firing order...that, my friend, the computer and crank position sensor don't control. LOL

 

when you dropped in the dist did you set the motor a tdc before installing the dist if your motor isnt timed correctly it will turn over and you will get spark but not the correct spark at the right time don't give up

 

I didn't set at TDC, figured it would've had to been there anyway, but then again with the distributor gear worn on the old one it could've skipped, so I'll check that.

Firing order, the wires are right.

Another question though, I threw one of those test lights that goes inline on the wires from the distrib to the plugs. I got what I expected on all cylinders, the light flashing, but it also flashed when I had inline of the coil to the center cap...Shouldn't that one be constanly on?

 

no, it fires on demand.

 

Pull the dist back out and drop in at TDC on compression stroke.

If you search under my username i had typed up the procedure in detail in the past.

Good luck..

 

Mine did the same thing, just crapped out one day. What had happened was the slack in the chain(from never being changed) caused the cam to spin slower than usual which in turn ground the teeth on the dist.(because the dist. Is bolted down, thus wont move) and dist. Gear on the cam. Not giving the jeep proper spark to run. I replaced the timing chain and gears, cam, and distributor. As soon as it was done it fired up with know problem and is more responsive and has more hp do to the fact that i put a comp cam in it cuz jeep wanted 1ooo dol. For lifters, cam, and push rods. Only down fall is that you have to pull the head. But its worth it cuz you can get it sent out and remand. So it really helps the over all performance.

 

The quarterback is toast. Got the timing right, cranked it, still wouldn't turn over, or when it did it sputter and pop like crazy until it died a few seconds later. Decided to turn the crank over so that the notch is on the 0 on the timing marks and pulled the cap. The rotor like it was set as it should earlier was about 120 degrees off of where it should have been.

This after I replaced the distributor, the old ones gear was torn up pretty bad. So this one has a new gear on it and it still slipped which tells me the cam gear is toast.

I don't feel like pulling the engine, so I think I'm going to part it out and dedicate my time to the 90 I have.