99 jeep cherokee sport 4.0l 300k

alright a little history where my maintenance started.
timing chain slipped so i had to do a whole bunch of that crap but i got it done. dont know if its a factor but you never know.

since then, jan of this year i have gone through 4 starters. here's what happens, i had a starter that broke and i did the usual oh darn it was probably old and i just replaced it. but after that the starters will work fine for about a month then out of the blue sometimes it will crank really slow and the engine will fire but i swear it fires back and hits the starter while its trying to start and eventually a week or too after the first bad start the starter takes a dive and gets worse and worse.

so to detail the issue i turn the key it turns super slow turns maybe twice and the engine fires but doesn't start. then i try a second time and it will sputter and be a good 5 seconds to start, rough idle then the jeep runs fine. and every starter i pull out the gear part spins freely both forward and back, im at a loss. what could cause this?

ive replaced the distributer cap and brush, ignition coil, fuel tank relay, starter relay when i did the timing chain. im stumped. i dont know if im posting in the right area but any ideas would help. thanks.

 

If the gear is sliding back on forth on the shaft by hand with no resistance like a fish out of water, the starter is bad. It should spring back on its own as soon as you let go. Have you been buying starters from the same place? If you are, its time to shop elsewhere. When buying a reman'd or rebuilt starter from anyone, check that gear before leaving the store. Or buy a brand new (not reman'd or rebuilt) starter.

 

ok just so im not that guy that leaves his post undone this is what happened.

after i was obsessing over this and constantly worried when the next time would be that it wouldnt start i did a lot of research into this topic. one thing that i read said that the computer could try and compensate on ignition timing if for some reason the cylinders werent firing correctly, what i think was happening was first of all i removed all the spark plugs and looked at them and they were really bad i tried to start the engine and look for a spark and they barely had one. like a really dim red crappy spark. not to mention they where old, dirty and worn out. as i was doing that i noticed all the cables basically fell off because they were so old. i replaced all my cables and spark plugs and now after two days i have had perfect starts every time.

so lesson learned. thanks for the input on this site as well as others i looked at.

- i like my whisky like i like my jeep, on the rocks.