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View Full Version : Tune up from HELL



JeepinHank
11-08-2004, 11:17 AM
My shit has been acting funny for the past couple of days. Its kinda like when you're going down a smooth road and hit a bump, only there is no bump. Sunday, I had to make a run into town and pick up my utility trailer/yard equipment, and I discovered that my suspected bump was actually an engine mis-fire. It was very random, so I had a lot of probemes diagnosing it sooner. Anyway, I had pretty much everything I needed to do a tune up - Spark plugs and some throttle body cleaner. I checked out my cap and rotor, and that looked good to go.

So, I jumped in to start my tuneup at around 7:30 Sunday night.

Sprayed the throttle body with a can of cleaner with the engine running, let it get back up to a smooth idle afterwards and shut it off. Pulled the plugs and wires (broke a wire of course :roll: ) sprayed the cylinders with the other can, blah blah blah..... Reconnected evrything, blah blah blah.....

Now for the kicker - my shit hasn't cranked since. I don't get it, it was a simple tune up. I've done it plenty of times in the 170K+ miles I've owned this thing. Why now? I didn't do any thing out of the ordinary. Is is because I'm about to actually do some constructive mods, and I can't be allowed to do something like that cause my junk may actually perform better?

I gave up after 10:30 cause I had a pretty rough weekend and needed some sleep - so my Heep is now sitting in the driveway. I even had to stoop so low as to borrow the wife's car to get to work today. I've gone over the firing order 4 times now, plug gap is to spec (0.035"), wires are brand new, and cap and rotor LOOKED good. All connections are tight. Tonight I'll do some real diagnosis, like physically check for spark, inspect the rotor and cap a little more closely, and check out my sensors. I'll see what that turns up. Just had to vent a little bit. :evil:

ARGH

gearhead313
11-08-2004, 12:58 PM
question:

does it crank and not fire? or does it even crank at all?

JeepinHank
11-08-2004, 02:21 PM
question:

does it crank and not fire? or does it even crank at all?

Yes, cranks. No, fire. I haven't really had time to diagnose everything like I should, but I didn't do anything major, just plugs and wires. :roll: I just need to go and look everything over with a clear head. I was too pissed to think straight last night.

JeepinHank
11-09-2004, 10:47 AM
I guess I had one of those DOH moments the other night. I went back to it yesterday with a clear head to look everything over, and it jumped right out at me. I wiped down the dist. cap, and noticed that I was one post off on the starting point for the #1 wire. I hooked everything up in the proper firing order, pulled all of the spark plugs, and cleaned and wiped them down. The plugs were pretty fouled up from all of the attempted starting and throttle body cleaner. After I put everything back in place, I tried starting it again, and again, it didn't want to fire. I held the throttle wide open, and just kept turning the engine over. Finally, it began to stumble and choke to life. After getting it started, I held the throttle at around 1500 RPMs until the engine got up to a good temp. Then I revved the engine up to 3-4K RPMs and held it in that range until all of the smoke cleared. Took her out and drove it hard (w/ no OD) for about 10 minutes. Got it back to the house, shut it down, and tried to restart it. She fired right up.

Everything is running fine, and no more strange "bumps" in the road.

Took a helluva lot longer than it should have, but my ZJ is running better than before.

OverkillZJ
11-09-2004, 11:06 AM
It's ok, I once (not that I'd ever admit it) put the wires on in a totally random order :roll:

God that thing ran like shiat.

gearhead313
11-09-2004, 03:20 PM
I guess I had one of those DOH moments the other night. I went back to it yesterday with a clear head to look everything over, and it jumped right out at me. I wiped down the dist. cap, and noticed that I was one post off on the starting point for the #1 wire. I hooked everything up in the proper firing order, pulled all of the spark plugs, and cleaned and wiped them down. The plugs were pretty fouled up from all of the attempted starting and throttle body cleaner. After I put everything back in place, I tried starting it again, and again, it didn't want to fire. I held the throttle wide open, and just kept turning the engine over. Finally, it began to stumble and choke to life. After getting it started, I held the throttle at around 1500 RPMs until the engine got up to a good temp. Then I revved the engine up to 3-4K RPMs and held it in that range until all of the smoke cleared. Took her out and drove it hard (w/ no OD) for about 10 minutes. Got it back to the house, shut it down, and tried to restart it. She fired right up.

Everything is running fine, and no more strange "bumps" in the road.

Took a helluva lot longer than it should have, but my ZJ is running better than before.


Nice! Glad you got it together ok.

gsh
11-09-2004, 09:05 PM
I hate when that kinda shit happens. I had a brain fart one time counting the cylinders on a V-8 from front to back instead of odd and even banks. Same kinof situation. The next day I was counting right (without even having to think about it) and found all but 1 and 8 wires on wrong.

I don't know which is worse, realizing you f'd up in such a simple stupid way or realizing you wasted so much time by f'n up in such a simple stupid way.

At least you're relieved you found the problem and it didn't cost more parts. Most of the time at least. I think somebody is trying to tell us nobody's perfect and throws us a humbling circumstance every now and then.