So I finished my engine swap / rebuild tonight and gave it a shot.

Fired right up and seemed to be running smoothly. Backed it out of the garage and let it idle in the driveway. About 35 degrees outside - seemed like a rather large amount of white smoke out of exhaust but as it idled for a while it reduced greatly.

Now the problem...as it sat there idling (maybe 10-15 or so minutes) and began to reach the temp at which point I figure the thermostat was about to open...it started running rough and then stalled.

Let it sit for a minute, while I stared at it hoping it would confess why it did that, and then went to try restarting it. While it would turn over - it would not start.

I took the oil cap off and I got a bunch of white smoke (maybe like the amount produced 3 or 4 cigarettes burning at once) out there too.

Any ideas?

just to get rid of the easy stuff - yes have gasoline

 

morning update

Just for grins I hopped in the cherokee today prior to heading to work in my car. It started right up.

Last evening I forgot to add that shortly before it died I did rev it a little bit - up to 1500 rpm maybe... not much. I think I left that out due to it seemed inconsequentially small.

ALSO - I did not feel comfortable with the setting/install of the camshaft position sensor. Almost seems like this could be related yes?

 

No smoke today? I've never fooled with the cam sensor in that year motor but it would seem a likely place to look if you think it's in there wrong.

 

Well, camshaft position sensor position checked out that I did it proper - drove it to local trustworthy shop to check out - Thanks

 

In the event this helps somebody in the future -

The cause was found to be a loose ground wire on the passenger side rear engine post. I put the ground on the post but forgot to put the nut on and tighten.

 

And I was going to chip in and say a wire melted into the exhaust somewhere.

Glad you found it.

 

Immediately upon start up, you should have broken in the cam bearings at about 1500 RPMs for 20 minutes.

White smoke? Usually burning antifreeze.

 

Cam and lifters you mean?

 

Yeah, the entire camshaft-related components. It was 2:15 AM when I made that post.

http://www.mellingengine.com/Portals...Rev4-12-07.pdf

 

I figured that....