I took this 98' Cherokee in Sac for a test drive, the forest green one I mentioned in an earlier post. It drove back the 200 miles to Salinas OK, I followed my friend in his Liberty. On the test drive it idled a little rough and going up Pacheco Pass it bogged down a bit then smoothed out. I took it by the shop I work at, had a friend there look at it. After much testing, found the distributor well worn. He removed it, I bought a Cardone reman one, only one auto parts place had one in stock today, so that was it. He had a heck of a time installing it, could not get the timing right at all! And he knows Jeeps to some degree, mostly works on diesels but he wanted to help me, it was just getting more and more frustrating. We could not find the timing marks and then he accidently broke off the new crank sensor that came with the distributor so we had to use my old sensor. He is thinking the timing chain is worn. These things still use a timing chain? Now Jeep is over at the shop across from us and I know they know Cherokees as the guys there have there own. UGH! Very frustrating as I really wanted this Cherokee and yes, has it's quirks, and needs a headliner redone, and a few other things that aren't life threatening to me or it. The engine has great compression,too. So that's how my Sunday went!

 

Welcome to the world of 15 year old used cars.

 

The inline 6 4.0 has a timing chain. The ignition timing is not adjustable, the dizy just goes in one place, the puter' does the timing. The crank sensor (CPS), is on the bell housing, cam sensor is in the dizy. The books are wrong, #1 is at 5:00 viewed from the side. (that may well be what threw him). Indexing a dizy can be tricky. One tooth off and your sunk. You can search "indexing a 4.0 distributor"....Btw the PO of MY Jeep bought it in Sac also! Swift Auto World.

 

Sounds like you bought my XJ's brother. I have a 98 forest green as well! Good luck with it and welcome to the club!

 

Where in salinas are you? I'm in south salinas just off the 68.

 

QFT!!

 

I live on Riker street near Salinas High!

 

Nice man! Any luck figuring out your timing issues?

 

I will say I am actually a gal, an OLD one! 46! :^) OK, maybe that isn't THAT old! LOL! But I tried to post a pic of me and the Jeep but keep getting a failed so I give up for the night! Will try tomorrow to post a few pics!

 

If you ever make up this way, feel free to drop me a line. I'd be happy to look under your hood, set your dizy, getr' purring smooth.