- Location
- Westminster, SoCal
As some of you may know my jeep has been down since September. It all started harmless: on my way to a M&G the engine sputtered at the ECU threw a code of "Cylinder 1 misfire". Since the jeep was sitting for just over a month and had to be jumped I figured that there was an issue with old fuel, not everything moving right or something to that effect ( I had a random cylinder 1 misfire a year prior that just happened once and went away).
Anyways, as I kept going I could clearly hear that the engine wasn't running right. So after some head scratching at a light I decided that it must be the old spark plug cable as those have been in there for a while. Easy fix: get to the parking lot, pop my trunk open, get to my spare parts and grab a lightly used but still in great shape spark plug cable and swap it in.
So I did just that. BS'ed with Santa some, had it running for a few and it seemed that it was all good. Went inside of the pizza joint, bs'ed with some folks and it was time to head home. Unfortunately during the drive back the cylinder 1 misfire reared it's ugly head again. So I started thinking again:
1. Jumped it, had misfire drove with misfire
2. Swapped cable misfire went away
3. started driving more and misfire came back
Conclusion? The cable I swapped in was bad (it was a used cable after all).
So next day on my way back from work I got some parts: distributor cap and rotor, new plugs and cables (might as well do some maintenance on the heep). While swapping the cap I noticed that my distributor is wobbly so I said: bingo! That's my problem. Went to O'Reilly's and in less then an hour later I had it running. Except.... it still kept throwing the code and now it was starting to sound a bit like a tractor.....
Next few months were months of love and hate.... During that time I had swapped injectors around, rewired the ECU to injector harness, swapped ECU's, ran sea foam, ran injector cleaner, ran some AT fluid in the engine, inspected valves, checked for spark... you name it........ Oh yeah: cylinders had good compression on them so I was stumped.
Months have passed... I thought about swapping an engine out: after all it had 200k+ on it but I didn't wanna spend the $ (I'm a cheap SOB) plus the time was an issue. What drove me nuts was the fact that after so much time spent on trying to figure it out I could have had the engine swapped over two times.
Anyways... the time finally came: a good deal on a new engine came up and I said... hell.... it's time to shit or get off the pot
Took me two weekends to get it all done but that's partly to not having ALL of the weekend each time around available to work on the jeep and some unusual setbacks:
1. there is a stupid attachment on the bracket on the front of an engine of older models for diagnostic tools that interferes with the belt on the newer models
2. had the right plug order on the distributor but.... wrong direction (don't ask why... still trying to figure out what was I thinking....)
3. my speaker wire and stereo went on the fritz and needed replacing (which took another half a day when you add to it time spent on shopping for a deck
) cause as you all know: new engine deserves a new radio
So after all is said and done the jeep is on the road again. It's purring right along and I couldn't be happier. I was missing the harsh ride, the noisy engine (comparing to my GTI engine is WAY noisy ), the windshield with weld spatter holes....... I spent some time driving around during the weekend and will take it down to the office sometime this week for a longer test run (office is 60 miles away)
Bottom line is that JEEPS ROCK! And I guess it's time to figure out when I can get away for some rocks or dirt
Oh yeah: I have to admit that there were times that I was so frustrated with it I was wondering how much I can get for it as a whole or how much to part it out...... I am so happy that I went only as far as thinking about it! I don't know what I'd do without a jeep
So keep your eyes open: you might see me on a trail sometime in the near future
Anyways, as I kept going I could clearly hear that the engine wasn't running right. So after some head scratching at a light I decided that it must be the old spark plug cable as those have been in there for a while. Easy fix: get to the parking lot, pop my trunk open, get to my spare parts and grab a lightly used but still in great shape spark plug cable and swap it in.
So I did just that. BS'ed with Santa some, had it running for a few and it seemed that it was all good. Went inside of the pizza joint, bs'ed with some folks and it was time to head home. Unfortunately during the drive back the cylinder 1 misfire reared it's ugly head again. So I started thinking again:
1. Jumped it, had misfire drove with misfire
2. Swapped cable misfire went away
3. started driving more and misfire came back
Conclusion? The cable I swapped in was bad (it was a used cable after all).
So next day on my way back from work I got some parts: distributor cap and rotor, new plugs and cables (might as well do some maintenance on the heep). While swapping the cap I noticed that my distributor is wobbly so I said: bingo! That's my problem. Went to O'Reilly's and in less then an hour later I had it running. Except.... it still kept throwing the code and now it was starting to sound a bit like a tractor.....
Next few months were months of love and hate.... During that time I had swapped injectors around, rewired the ECU to injector harness, swapped ECU's, ran sea foam, ran injector cleaner, ran some AT fluid in the engine, inspected valves, checked for spark... you name it........ Oh yeah: cylinders had good compression on them so I was stumped.
Months have passed... I thought about swapping an engine out: after all it had 200k+ on it but I didn't wanna spend the $ (I'm a cheap SOB) plus the time was an issue. What drove me nuts was the fact that after so much time spent on trying to figure it out I could have had the engine swapped over two times.
Anyways... the time finally came: a good deal on a new engine came up and I said... hell.... it's time to shit or get off the pot
Took me two weekends to get it all done but that's partly to not having ALL of the weekend each time around available to work on the jeep and some unusual setbacks:
1. there is a stupid attachment on the bracket on the front of an engine of older models for diagnostic tools that interferes with the belt on the newer models
2. had the right plug order on the distributor but.... wrong direction (don't ask why... still trying to figure out what was I thinking....)
3. my speaker wire and stereo went on the fritz and needed replacing (which took another half a day when you add to it time spent on shopping for a deck
) cause as you all know: new engine deserves a new radio So after all is said and done the jeep is on the road again. It's purring right along and I couldn't be happier. I was missing the harsh ride, the noisy engine (comparing to my GTI engine is WAY noisy
), the windshield with weld spatter holes....... I spent some time driving around during the weekend and will take it down to the office sometime this week for a longer test run (office is 60 miles away)Bottom line is that JEEPS ROCK! And I guess it's time to figure out when I can get away for some rocks or dirt
Oh yeah: I have to admit that there were times that I was so frustrated with it I was wondering how much I can get for it as a whole or how much to part it out...... I am so happy that I went only as far as thinking about it! I don't know what I'd do without a jeep
So keep your eyes open: you might see me on a trail sometime in the near future
arty:
