Going to pick up a 1996 xj tonight. I'm talking to the lady and she said it stalls when you hit a bump but starts right back up. What connection would be loose or need fixing for it to do that? Anything I would have to buy for it too not happen anymore or just find a lose connection and clean it up and tighten it?

 

Can't answer that until the issue is found.

Could be loose connections, bad ground, quite a few things really.

 

Nothing serious though from the sounds of it?

 

Define serious. Electrical gremlins can drive you crazy. Could be anything from a loose ground to the computer.

 

sounds like the connection to the ECU might be loose. i know its a different jeep, but on a 97 ZJ we're working on you can get it to die by moving a connector to the ECU a certain way. the problem is it stalls at any given time at random. i would check that first, and other connections while you're looking.

worst case it could be a critical wire somewhere thats exposed and shorting to ground when you hit a bump.

 

This.

So many connections and wires to trace, it could be a massive headache. Or could be a simple 5 min fix. Really tough to call from where we are...

 

Well I have time to track wires so its not too big of deal. Worst case is a bad ecu or just not hooked up right?

 

Worst case scenario is all the wiring is crap and you'll spend the next 5 years trying to fix it. You'll find one problem, fix it and another pops up in its place. My 87 Ranger had this same problem. Would just die for no reason. Sometimes it would start right up, sometimes it would take 15 minutes. Never did find the problem. I just ripped the 4 banger out and dropped in a 5.0.

 

Well I ended up picking It up. Definitely rusty. Turned out to be a 93 too. But for $540 I didn't mind. I'm not sure if its stock or not, it has gobs of power. First time driving a jeep though so who knows.

 

Took it too my mechanic today he said every jeep he's worked on around here had a loose connection to the computer or the computer was bad. He said he will try to clean up the connection and plug in a new one and if it doesn't work he will look through wiring.

 

I looked at some grounds today and the one from the block to the firewall was in bad shape. I got the jeep to stall and it wouldn't start, when I played with the ground it started. Is there a better wire to use then the wide flat one? It looks bad and doesn't seem to be grounding good. Would like sub woofer ground wire work? Like from the amp?

 

Update: Starts up now runs for about 10 seconds then dies. No rough running just kills right away. Won't start up until I wiggle wires going from the distibutor, that ground to the block and go into the wire harness. Should I tear in there and see what's going on or what does anyone think?

 

New update: tore into it. Turns out it was the trans dip stick vibrating. It rubbed though plastic cover of the wire harness and was arcing out on an orange wire. Taped it back up and zip tied it away from the dip stick and no problems.