98jeepsrt6

Good morning from Miami,

Yesterday i ordered a reman distributor, cap, and rotor due to a whining noise and vibration at the distributor. Prier to the day before yesterday the jeep ran fine with no noticeable issues. I lent the jeep to my gf for the day and when i get in the following morning i heard a very distinct whining sound. Immediately popped the hood and traced the sound to the distributor. I placed my hand on the cap and wires and felt a good amount of vibration.

Even though the whining and vibration was present it didn't show any signs of misfire/ rough idle, etc. I drove the jeep from my parking space to the back of the lot to change the parts. Jeep ran fine, just with the noise. I marked cap to distributor location, rotor to distributor, and distributor to block. I pulled it out as straight as possible and watched the rotor turn as the dist. gear came off the cam gear.

While installing the new distributor with corresponding marks i ran into a lil problem. Its seem the old distributor had been worn down a bit making it easy to reinstall. With the new distributor i had to play around for it to slide in. All markings came together letting me know that the timing was the same as when it came out. Put together the cap with #1 pole in the correct location and assembled wires. I made a drawing of how it was but knew the layout anyways so i am certain the wires are not mixed.

mounted grounds (had to remove two to have some room to get the wrench in) (gonna double check them today when i get out of work)

Went to start her up and she idled very smooth, i was surprised how smooth. But in no time i began to get misfires. Started with 1 cylinder missing then seemed to gradually become more(3 max).

From what i have read it could be the crank sensor/ cam sensor. Reading more i have ruled out crank sensor since if that was the cause i would have stalling or not start. (Starts and idles with miss fire, no stalling)
That leaves me with cam sensor (I pulled code P0320 & P1391)
-P0320 Ignition/Distributor Engine Speed Input Circuit
-P1391 (M) Intermittent Loss of CMP or CKP Loss of the Cam Position Sensor or Crank Position sensor has occurred.

I did noticed white residue on the ignition coil wire to cap (only on cap side/inside of cable) Also white residue inside the cap on each terminal.

And this is where im at... I researched the codes, and have only seen posts of ckp, cps(cam). And in most these did not resolve the issue. No follow ups on fixing the issue.

SO let me know what you guys know... Thank you

98 xj
4.0L i6
aw4 trans ( 2wd )
unknown mileage speedo doesnt work
tune up is up to date

98jeepsrt6

bump

Nor-CalJeeper

sounds like the timing is off and that is whats causing the missfire, the XJ doesnt have standard timing adjustments like a normal Dizzy does but it still has to be installed correctly.


Here is a good article on the precedure hope it helps you out.

http://jeep-xj.info/HowtoEngineInstall4.htm

98jeepsrt6

ok maybe, one gear tooth is all it should be off then.. The motor wasn't cranked and all my alignment marks matched. should it still be out of alignment? i know that anytime you change the distributor it isn't necessary to start from TDC on cyl 1. as long as all the marking matched it should be fine.

Ill check anyways.. What would be other possibilities?

mobinxj

So i replaced my engine with a 91 h.o engine and replaced its distributor with my 2000 XJ's computer managed distributor and im have isuues with the timing. i mean yeah, tdc with my thumb on the number spark hole and all that but im confused if i need to wait until the other sensor (im not sure what its called) to learn the firing order since its no longer sparking off the traditional spark plug wire distributor? i hope all that made sense. if someone could help me out that would definitely be appreciated.