billyboyxoxox

Gogmorgo, I have the 4.0 and it does have plenty of torque. Truthfully, I almost never use 5th gear because I don't drive it on the interstate. 4th is high enough for my 55mph old man driving. I've got 153,000 miles on it and it makes the normal lifter ticks but I don't push it too hard. I've only done a few hill crawls in the woods but I promise I've done my share of log dragging, tree pulling over and FULL loads of firewood. The old BA10/5 hasn't failed me yet. It's got the Dana 35 rear axle too and it did drop a wheel with a burned out bearing once about 20,000 miles ago. That was a first for me and I was lucky the wheel and axle was only hit by one Chevy Blazer in late rush hour Chicago traffic. It bent the axle 45 degrees where it was hot! It hasn't been on the interstate since and I admit it scares me a little. I had an extra leaf spring added to both sides in back so it would hold more weight which it has done MANY times. I'd still say I baby it for the most part! 500 MJ, I appreciate your offer but I might go for the ebay owners manual because it's for my 4x4. Thank you! sinkrun, thank you for that link! I probably will end up paying their price for it when I have a few extra bucks. I've tried googling for information about those lights and get all kinds of horse manure not really related to my search. Maybe I need practice with my search terms. lol!

A shift light! I was guessing it might be that even though it seems to have great faith in the old motor's torque capabilities. Thank you friends! Now what about those other lights? I've owned this truck since 1994 and I'm only now worried about this. lol! I would really like to find an owners manual for it. Any ideas on links to find one would be much appreciated.

I need to know what the 'tell tale' lights on the left side of the dash just under the brake light are. Immediately under the brake light on the right is an orange upward pointing arrow and there is something on the left of that. The orange upward arrow has been coming on in every gear once the RPM's get up to a certain point. The light on the left flashed one time, not even long enough for me to see what it looked like. I don't know what is below these two or anything past the brake light. Thank you in advance for any help in understanding what these lights are. Where is a good place to look for an owners manual for this truck?

I can't believe what I've been through for just over four weeks with this truck refusing to fire and I'm shocked at what finally got it to run again. I finally had a helper to crank the starter from the switch while I jiggled the connectors on the ignition control module and got a quick burst of fire with the engine threatening to start even though it didn't fire up. My helper had to leave so I took the newer ICU off and tried to modify the female tubes to be tighter which ended up being almost not at all. I put it back on and still nothing! I was at my usual complete loss. The ICU was only purchased a couple of months ago and it did work for the first month even though I would have this firing issue after warm ups. The new Napa CPS and grounding cables were good upgrades through all of this as was removing the C101 connector. Anyway, I got thinking about the 29 year old ICU and dug it out of my scrap pile, cleaned it up with a wire wheel and put it back in place of the new one and guess what? The damn thing has started every stinking time since! I can't believe it. Today is day 3 and I made two trips to town with it starting perfectly every stop I had to make and not even a hint of the firing problem again. I've since lost my receipt for the new ICU so I'm eating it and I bought it at an Advance auto parts store, who I usually trust for decent quality parts. I will be buying any other parts like this from Napa now after reading Cruiser54's appreciation for them from a professional viewpoint. Am I allowed to plug for Napa here? I just did anyway. I am so thankful that the old girl is up and running again! I'm half way worried about the 29 year old part that "solved" my problem but so be it. For now, I'm not afraid to take it out and go where I need to. If the problem ever starts again, I'll know to trust the next ICU from Napa. Thank you all for putting up with my crybaby baloney and Cruiser54 for his understanding of Renix ignitions!

The starter relay I bought is marked for the ground terminal and I don't remember switching the ground and the ignition wires around but I noticed today that the ground wire (black with white tracer) was reversed with the green ignition wire. The Chilton manual shows the black/white tracer is grounded and it is. Here is my question. Is there supposed to be power on the ignition terminal at any time? There hasn't been power there when I test it with the key on. The relay does function to turn the motor over from the new ignition switch but there is still no fire with those two wires where they should be. I thank you in advance for any ideas and help!

The ignition switch is a new Napa part. It seems to be adjusted correctly. It will turn the motor over like it should and of course all the dash lights are doing what they normally do. I've tried jiggling it when the ignition is on and then jumping the starter at the relay but it's always the same. I'm doing this by myself for now. The coil will fire only when I take my screwdriver jumper off and not every time. I remember when it would run weeks ago I would get a constant shock from the coil when jumping the starter relay, plug the coil wire back up and it would start and run and get me to my next stop. If and when I find my problem, I promise I'll post what I learned for others. I promise I'm tired of this! Thank you for your help!

Yes, the wires are all soldered very well. Like the one fellow who commented on your tip 26 for getting rid of that connector, there are four wires that had no mates. Three on one side and one on the other. They are taped up. There are only a couple of pair where the colors don't match from side to side but the gauges are correct and I was extremely careful and used a continuity tester on each pair before I made any cuts. --It will give me a fire when I let off the starter but nothing while it's turning over. That's what surprises me and it did start and run for about 7 minutes last week before it died with no fire again. This is an unusual one isn't it? I have to do this by myself so you are the only other brain right now. I'm taking a break while the rain comes down and probably will give up for the night. My poor starter is taking a lot of extra work! It's not that old and holding up better than my battery which is 4 years old and will get another charge tonight. Thank you for all of your suggestions Cruiser! We'll get it sooner or later. I got a can of electrical parts cleaner and sprayed all of the connectors under the hood out and even took the ECU off and sprayed those connectors out real good too. Just for the heck of it I took a wire wheel to the ECU mounting points to make sure it was grounding well. It has ground continuity every place I've tested and as far as my tester wires will reach.

The C101 has been eliminated. Maybe I'll go over the joints and make sure something hasn't failed. It's really an odd problem.

I know this is getting old. I've gone over everything in Cruiser54's tips and upgraded the grounding with Napa cables from the block to the firewall, the negative battery terminal to the radiator support, the fuel pump ground to frame, removed the C101 and cleaned and even soldered the connections by the dipstick tube. The CPS is putting out .8 vac and is a new Napa part. The coil and ICU are only month old. The ECU is only about 10 days old. I even replaced the ignition switch on the steering column with a new Napa one. The truck last started when I put the old distributor in with the harness unplugged. I forgot to do that and it started right up. I plugged it back up and it warmed up for 5-7 minutes before it died without fire again. I've tried unplugging the distributor harness again but nothing yet. I'm turning the key on and jumping the starter relay and the coil only fires when I let off. I will tell you honestly that I'm touching the coil with my finger and taking it and of course it shocks the hell out of me but I promise I'm tough enough to do that no matter how crazy it sounds. There is of course power to the coil with the ignition on. Has anybody ever experienced a problem like this? What am I missing? I'm so sorry to bother you with this but I need and miss my truck! I won't be allowed to borrow the one I've had this past week much longer.

Get this. I just put the old distributor back in and forgot to plug the harness back together and she started right up! I plugged it back together after it started and it ran for 5 minutes before it died. Now it's back to what it was doing with the coil not firing consistently. I am so close but so far from getting this figured out. Grounds soldered together from the old C101 and cleaned up everywhere I can find them. The fuel pump ground even has the upgrade to the frame. This has got to be something really simple and right under my nose. I guess I can appreciate the experience but it's gone on way too long and I need my truck to run again! Any ideas anybody?

The truck started and ran with the old distributor in it last week for one trip to town where it started perfectly all five times I stopped. Then it died on the way home and hasn't fired normally or started again. I just put a new ignition switch from Napa in it this morning because the old one failed to turn it over with the key switch. I've been testing the ignition terminal on the starter relay and it hasn't shown power yet. The CPS registers .8-1.0 volts and is a new Napa part as well. I've checked and cleaned grounds all over the place. The ECU is a newly remanufactured one and I'm assuming good. I get a spark from the coil for a brief moment when I let off with my starter relay jumper but not every time and sometimes I can feel a light voltage from the coil but not enough to make me jump. It's a new coil and ICU. I've cut the aligning tabs off of the new distributor for Cruiser54's tip 13 indexing but I need to understand something. In that tip he says to "rotate the distributor housing until the trailing edge of the distributor rotor tip is just departing from the #1 spark plug wire post terminal." It turns clockwise when running so does that mean to turn the distributor with the cutout window counter clockwise until the right side of the rotor tip is just past the no.1 terminal or clockwise until the left side of the rotor tip is just arriving at the no.1 terminal? I had the rotor tip pretty much centered on the no.1 terminal when it ran. I don't think my problem is there but I don't know anything for sure. Something is keeping it from firing and after two weeks of this, working by myself, I'm pretty tired of it. Also, the C101 connector was done away with before it did run. Any helpful ideas will be greatly appreciated!

The old MJ fired right up with the old distributor in it and took me to town and started perfectly all five times I had to stop but it died on the way home and quit firing again! It's in the driveway now and I've checked the CPS voltage which goes from .8 to 1.0. It's not firing consistently from the coil at all. When the ignition switch is on, the ignition terminal on the Starter relay has no power. That wire appears to be black with a white tracer. Does it go straight to the ignition switch? Could that have anything to do with my problem? Fuses are all good with power on both sides. New problem today. The starter won't crank from the ignition switch at all. It will turn over fine jumping the relay. The ignition switch is only a few years old and the starter relay was replaced two months ago. There appears to be no power to either the ignition or solenoid posts on the starter relay when the key is cranked to start so I'm going to assume the ignition switch has failed. The NAPA store has one for me and I'll try to get a ride tomorrow. I hope I'm back with good news sooner than later! Thank you again Cruiser54!

I want to thank Cruiser54 for his excellent 'Renix tips' because I don't know what I would have done without his help with that page. This morning, I was perusing tip 13 about cutting off the aligning tabs on the new distributor and then thought, 'no, that's crazy on a new distributor', so I thought that I would do it to the old distributor but even that scared me. I ended up putting the old distributor back in without cutting the tabs off and the truck started right up and ran as smooth as ever! Who would have thought it? I sure didn't. There went $90 down the drain for a new distributor I probably didn't need but I have it just in case now. The CPS tips for modifying the upper mounting hole to get the correct voltage were invaluable as were the instructions for eliminating the C101 connector. If I had found Cruisers tips earlier, I may have saved myself from the distributor purchase but I won't be sorry about the new coil and ICU. The old MJ lives again! After all the schmidt I've been through these past 10 days or so, I'm thanking the Holy Mother with a smudge in the old Jeep and heading into town for groceries and to pay a bill or two here in a short while. I can't believe what I've just been through to get to this point but I am so very thankful. Thank you again Cruiser!

I will admit, tip 13 scared me with cutting the aligning tabs off of a new distributor so I thought I might cut the ones off of the old one. That still scared me so I simply put the old distributor back in this morning and the damn thing started right up and is running about as good as ever. I can't believe what I've gone through to get to this point. I want to thank Cruiser54 again for his fantastic Renix tips because I wouldn't have made it without his help. Your experience with old Jeeps like mine really paid off for me even if it took me a week longer than it should have. Thank you so much!! I guess I have a new distributor for a backup now. I'm guessing the wear on the old one was just that little bump in timing that it needed this time. Praise the Mother!

Hello again Cruiser54. I thank you so much!, for your website which is of course bookmarked for future reference. I went ahead and drilled the CPS upper mounting hole out one more size and got .5vac and even .6 for a revolution or two. I went ahead and got rid of the C101 while I was at it and the battery was charging. It finally started after a good few extra attempts! Here's what's happening now. It wants to run okay but will still die and there's the sound of a backfire when it does. It has done this about every time it's started even though that's only half a dozen times so far. The distributor only has a couple of degrees of play when loosened and I tried moving it that much with the same results. Surely it won't start at all if the distributor is even one gear key off will it? I'm overly confident that the distributor is in correctly but I could be mistaken. Surely the Renix ECU isn't smart enough to run it with the distributor out is it? I've reset the distributor half a dozen times while monkeying with it and every time I feel the rotor is as close to the no.1 terminal as it can be at top dead center on the compression stroke. I've been checking that with my finger over the no.1 spark plug hole and a wooden dowel for a feeler. It is a remanufactured ECU and this is the first time it has run with it. Does it take a few starts to settle in? It's so darn close to being right and I'm thankful I took your advice and got rid of that C101. I didn't think that was the problem in my last post but it very well could have been contributing to it. I thank you again for any extra help you can give with ideas for what is wrong now. Bless you! I owe you a few beers already or whatever your drink of choice is. I advise people I care about to avoid sugary drinks... By the way, I just rechecked the voltage on the new CPS and it read .7. Is there such a thing as too much voltage from that device? It's not starting consistently but it wants to. It runs really rough when it does start. My poor battery has about had it and is charging again and again. Another odd thing, in the 'tell tale' panel lights on the far left just under the emergency brake light, there's a upward arrow that lights and when it did run, another one flashed to its left that I've never seen before. That one didn't stay lit long enough for me to even see what it was. Neither stays on but the downward arrow sometimes comes on when the key is put in ignition. Neither is explained in my Chiltons manual.

Cruiser, I bought the Napa CPS and installed it. It only put out .3 volts so I did the drill out to 3/8's and now it goes to .5 but drops right back to .4 after a few revolutions. Is it possible to drill the upper mounting hole out one more size without the sensor getting into the flywheel? I got a couple of hot sparks from the coil but they weren't constant at all and of course the motor didn't start. I did solder the brown/tracer ground wires together and cleaned the C101 connnector up as good as I could but I don't think there is a problem with that at this point. Any ideas about drilling that CPS mounting bracket out a little more would be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance for your help. I did manage to reach in and wipe the flywheel with a cloth while turning it over but there is no way I can reach with a feeler gauge to check that clearance. I assume it must be pretty close to the flywheel already.

I've just been looking around this site and found Cruiser54's excellent help with Renix problems and I've already learned a lot. I'm going to follow his suggestions for CPS testing and possibly the adjustment mod, drilling out the upper mounting hole. I did buy an O'Reilly's after market CPS because they were the only ones that had it in stock. I admit that I didn't bother testing the voltage on the new one while cranking and I see now how that was a mistake. I hope to not have to get rid of the C101 connector yet but that might be in my near future too. All of my grounds have checked out so far. I hope to be back later this weekend with the news that my problem has been solved and I'm sorry that I didn't get around to looking at Cruiser's posts before crying the blues here. Bless you all! billyboyxoxox

I recently had started having problems with my 1987 Comanche 4.0 refusing to start after being warmed up. I realized quickly that it wasn't firing and would pop the hood and shake the wiring harness going into the ignition control module while shorting across the starter relay and it would start but it continued to happen. I even loosened the coil and worked it up and down and it would always start. I did replace the coil and ignition control module but the problem continued although it would still start and never failed to get me to my next destination. A week ago, it wouldn't start from cold and I checked the coil for fire and it was firing hot to the distributor but not to the plugs. I learned that the CPS was likely the problem and replaced both that and the distributor with new. Then it wouldn't even fire from the coil although the coil was getting power so I replaced the ECU just today and it's the same problem. There is power to the coil on both terminals but no spark from the coil at all now. I've gone over all the fuses and fuse links and they are all good. I've also checked continuity across the plug connectors at the distributor and CPS and they are fine. I've spent a small fortune I probably didn't need to but it is a 29 year old truck so once it runs again, those parts will be good for the rest of its time with me. My first question is: is there ever a time when the CPS needs to be loosened and moved whatever tiny bit it will actually move? I can't imagine it the way it mounts but I don't know. What else am I missing? Is there a relay I don't know about that controls anything with the ignition? This problem has given me fits. I did get it to fire up for a couple of seconds after the CPS was replaced but it lost all fire after that and hasn't shown any fire since although the coil still has 12 volts going to it. I'm expert at installing distributors and top dead center on the compression stroke has been redetermined a couple of extra times in my frustration. I'm at a complete loss. This is my daily driver and needs to run again soon. It has 153,000 miles and actually runs very good and I've babied the BA-10/5 most of the 22 years I've owned this truck. It's a rust bomb but it has worked so hard for me with an extra leaf added to both sides in back to make the 3" Rancho suspension lift look fine. It will carry as much firewood as any full size half ton pickup and I've had it stacked to 7 feet off the ground. I was only going a short distance mind you but it rocked the load for me. Any help for an idea to my firing problem will be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance for any help you can give. billyboyxoxox

This is my MJ that I've owned for 18 years. It was used regularly for the first 4 1/2 years and driven from Chicagoland to Vigo county Indiana many times until the drivers side rear axle bearing gave out on the Tri-state tollway. It was used, unplated, as a yard truck for the next 13 years until about eight months ago when it was restored to regular use in Indiana. The BA10/5 transmission with 131,000 miles on it has held up because it has been babied for the most part except for the occasional short climb or log drag. It needs a lot of body work which has never been done. I wish I had given it a few more baths to get the Chicago road salt off of it but I hope to do some body/floorboard work on it before much longer. It might look sad but I promise with the extra rear leaf spring it's a worker. As far as I can tell, the only option it has is the sliding rear window. Someday, I would like to find a Cherokee or MJ a few years newer being sold for junk with the better transmission and maybe a few gauges and body parts and beef it up. For now it is being used as my primary transportation. I recently replaced exhaust pipes and tires but that is all I can afford right now. The rear bumper is a Ford F-150 (year unknown) with four inches taken off. It is well loved. I'm sorry, I don't know how to get my picture on here yet.