johns9761

I've been searching through this forum and all over the interwebz and cannot find a solution. Can somebody please help???

I have a 98 XJ with the 4.0. Recently I had to pull the engine to extract some broken motor mount bolts. I got that fixed and installed a full set of Brown Dog mounts. While the engine was out I replaced the timing chain and gears, and also did the oil pan, valve cover, and exhaust/intake gasket. I also installed a new coil, cap, rotor, wires, plugs, AND a new crank position sensor. I stuffed everything back in, hooked it all up, put in new oil and filter, and burped the coolant...

Now the engine runs like poo.

It doesn't idle smoothly (jumps up and down 100-200rpm). When I give it the slightest bit of throttle it dies out and sounds like it's starting to backfire. It also seems to me that it's getting hot unusually quick. With the hood wide open, everything in the engine compartment gets too hot to touch within a few minutes...but the temp gauge holds steady at 210.

I've checked and rechecked...and re-rechecked all of my hoses and wires and can't find anything wrong. I checked my pushrods and rocker arms and everything looks good. Had a couple of bent rocker arm bridges so I replaced those...that didn't help.

I was concerned that I might have installed my timing gears a tooth off. I set my crank to 0* and pulled the cap off my distributor. The rotor is pointed dead center on the #1 post on the cap. Had I installed the timing gears incorrectly wouldn't the rotor be slightly advanced/retarded?

I've checked everything that I can think to check and so far nothing has helped. Can somebody please help me?????