hshift

Felt I needed to share my Sunday morning, afternoon, and evening adventure in repairing my Jeep. Great way to spend a weekend day!

I am the original owner of a 2000 WJ V8, 182K on the clock. It has been a pretty reliable car. Been through the blend door issue and the heater core change, both fixed thanks to the forum info here. My wife uses this car, and this week she tells me it’s not running so good, chugging at high speed with the occasional stall at stops. She also says “the little engine light” on the dash is lit up. So today I whip out my Torque app and see I have a P0108-MAP sensor circuit high warning. Seeing this is a pricey sensor, I figure I’ll clean it first to see if I can save some money. I look up on the web and see the sensor on my Jeep is mounted on the front of the intake, partially blocked by the alternator and the coolant sensor. Try as I may I could not get a socket down to the 2 torx bolts that hold it in, so I decide to take out the alternator. I unhook the plug on back of it, the main wire on top, and remove the three mounting bolts and then…nothing! Look up on this forum and find that you need a pry bar of some sort to get it off, so I grab my crowbar and gently pry it out. Why I did the next step I don’t know but I figure let’s make it real easy to remove the torx head bolts by removing the pigtail off the coolant sensor, which is kind of in the way. I grasp the coolant sensor plug and give it a squeeze and off it comes, now I have real easy access to the MAP and I remove it. Pretty dirty, I douse it with cleaner and let it dry, then go to reinstall. As I’m putting the second nut back in I drop it down onto the block somewhere. I get a flashlight and see where it is, but my magnetic pickup won’t fit between the alt bracket and the block. Trip 1 to Autozone and I now have the bolts to put the MAP back on.

I get the MAP sensor in, reconnect it, then go to reconnect the coolant sensor, and….it won’t go on. I’m checking the pins on the sensor, they look OK, what’s going on? After 20 minutes of trying to get it on finally I break the connector on the pigtail. Damn it, trip 2 to an Autozone and two different Advance Autos, and $29.95 later, I have the pigtail. Get home, splice it in, and it drops onto the coolant sensor easy. Hook up the alternator, drive belt, reset the computer, and fire it up. Check engine light still there. Run torque app and now it tells me a different error, Coolant temp sensor circuit high! What the hell? I try clearing the code with Torque, no dice, comes back on a few seconds later. It’s at this point I realize my alternator gauge is reading low, how could that be? Then, the light bulb goes off in my head. Did I connect the alternator pigtail to the coolant sensor, and vice versa? I go check the color of the wires for the alternator on a wiring diagram and….YES! Apparently, the coolant sensor pigtail and the alternator pigtail are very similar looking, and CAN almost be plugged in to either one. Luckily this time I can reach the pigtails without removing the alternator. I swap them and now my alternator gauge is where it should be, but STILL have a CEL light for coolant sensor circuit high. I figure the coolant sensor must be fried after having the alternator pigtail on it. Trip 3 back to Advance for a coolant sensor and a 19mm long socket and a 19mm wrench just in case, and $36.97 and I’m back home. Pull the alternator again, change out the coolant sensor, put it all back, and notice the little tab that holds the alternator pigtail is broke. At this point I didn’t have the *****, money, or gas to go back to the parts store, so I kludged it on with a wire loop to hold it in till I can get another pigtail at the junkyard. I fire it up though, and finally, the damn CEL is gone! Took it for a ride, rode good and strong, no CEL’s, so at the least this nightmare might have accomplished something. Sometimes I really hate working on cars.

investinwaffles

Sounds exactly what happens every time I go to work on my jeep.

Except step 4 is "zip tie the damn thing back on and keep driving it"

And step 2 is usually that I broke something with a hammer