AMM518

hey guys, im starting this thread in the hopes of someone helping me figure out what is wrong with my jeep. i just bought a 96 lifted cherokee with 320,000 miles.. i picked it up in basicallly mint condition both the interior and exterior for 500 bucks. it ran completely fine except for the bolt being seized and lose on the front trac bar?? (lol could be wrong)...also it needed an oil change. fixed the bolts then tried to change the oil and could not get the filter off. two of my guy friends wrestled with it for a bit and finally got it off...we put in 5w30 but my other friend who has 5 jeeps and knows everything about them told me not to use that oil and to get 10w40 (i believe)...
Anyways to make a long story short now the car is running TERRIBLY. i moved it out of my driveway and had pull it back in, i thought it was going to explode.
it was making terrible noises and the check engine light is now on and the oil pressure needle is pinned reading that it is very high. Now i have no idea at all what could be wrong because i dont know too much lol but would the wrong oil cause that to happen? Should i have listened to my friend? or could it be something they did when they wrestled with the filter?
i need to figure out what it is and fix it quick or my dad is making me get rid of the car. PLEASEE if someone could help me it would be MUCHHH appreciated, thanks in advance!!

ol"blue

I think there's a wire for the oil pressure sending unit near the oil filter that they may have damaged when they were "wrestling" with the filter. JMO

jeepxjho

Well first thing i would do since you said that its making some noise is check for oil leaking from under the jeep.

Mainly around the drain bolt and also the filter area, if there's no leaks then check the oil lvl on the dipstick to make sure its withing limits the jeep holds 6qts of oil with filter change.

Now as for the oil pressue beaing pegged the oil presure sensor is above the oil filter housing and the plug might have been hit loose when wrestling with the filter.

AMM518

see thats what someone else had mentioned also...is something like that expensive to fix? what can i do about taking care of this? sorry for all the questions lol i just have no idea over here

so you def dont think it has anything to do with the oil?

jeepxjho

The sensor looks like a 3 to 4 inch tube sensor right above the filter with 1 wire going to it.

jeepxjho

If the wire just came off then it is a quick fix the oil sensor itself is a pretty simple to device and will be easy and cheap to fix if some how it was borken in the wrestle they run about 20 bucks nornally.

Put the wire proablly did fall or break off so i wouldnt think it will need a new sensor.

AMM518

yeah its black correct? would that make the car think its messed up or would it be driving like it is? the exhaust it back firing, there is no power, hard idle...its bad and before it was running strong...

89cherokeelimited

i use 5w30. Mine seems to run A LOT better with 5w 30. What motor 4.0? If so did you put 6 quarts of high milage oil? I use full synthetic AND oil treatment every oil treatment.

AMM518

6 cyl. i believe we used 1 quart of lucas. and im not sure on what kind of oil. i dont believe it was high milage oil tho. would that be bad?

jeepxjho

Yes its a black sensor my bet is that the wire came off of it.

As for the back firing the oil sensor shouldnt cause that issue, that kind of sounds like a bad spark plug wire or spark plug.

It might sound weird but the distributor where the sprak plug wire attach to is right above the oil sensor housing also, i'm not sure how they were getting the filter off but they might have knocked a spark plug wire loose in the process.

That would explain the way its running it might be a stretch but it easy to check

thevervaeckes

I would check the oil pres sensor and the ignition coil. They are both close together. as for the oil pressure being high did you get the old oil filter o-ring off or is it still stuck in there with the new filter?

AMM518

omg you are right! they knocked 3 spark plug wires off the cap while "wrestling" with it lol would it matter if they were placed back in correctly? or maybe one is just loose? if it were loose would it create this problem? i feel like you are hitting the nail right on the head!! thank you!

so what should i do:
1. change the oil out to 10W40 high milage
2. check if the spark plug wire is loose or broken
3. check to see if the sensor is loose or busted

and what else?

would coolant have anything to do with it? the the thing 4 coolant tube run into broke and we replaced it....

atomic-xj

check all your ignition wires, one might have been knocked loose while wrestling with the filter. Would make it run bad.

djdaredevil

cant be sure that its black but should be the only wire by the oil filter.
disconnect the battery fix the wire if its damaged and possible to fix otherwise get a new sensor and harness for the sensor both should be cheap and the harness you could probably get at the junk yard.
once thats fixed try running it then let us know whats up.

just as a future reference I use 10w40 or 20w50 in mine and have since my first one

AMM518

i feel like this is going to be something so stupid but im worried because of how severe it is...the car is in no way even drivable