Rymanrph

Glad to see you're back at it Jeff. I remember seeing the start of your build shortly before I bought my own. Can't wait to see a fresh coat of paint on it.

Hey Pete. It doesn't look like I'm getting notifications either. The only thing I can see that might be an issue is "someone comments on something I follow" is grayed out. It says administrator has disabled this option from being toggled. "New content for things I follow" is checked though and I don't get the email notifications. I don't log on as much as I used to, so I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

I bought a T-shirt and a hoodie years ago and love them. I would probably buy more if they were available.

No problem. Good luck on the build. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. The forums aren't sending me notifications on my followed topics any more, so a PM might be a better option.

Sorry, I just now saw this. It would would have to be a REALLY right price.

I wouldn't worry about it. Do what Mike did. I wish I had done the same and I still might do that one day. Glad to see you're still around Mike!

Nothing. The only thing that I can think of is that I didn't have a good connection at the battery, but I had already replaced my battery terminals maybe a year ago and I even recently removed and cleaned them with a wire brush after I started having issues (both the cable terminals and the posts on the battery).

I got the battery tested and it's fine. The truck started right up yesterday with no issues; it ran for a while and never cut off. The fuel pressure was good and steady. I also did a leak down test and it was fine too. I ran it for a while, turned it off and turned it back on without incident. I'm really confused now.

I rented the fuel pressure tester yesterday again and the truck wouldn't start. It looks like my battery might not be holding a charge. I charged it up for a while and could get the truck to crank and start, but would either die immediately or occasionally I could keep it running with gas, but would die as soon as I got off the throttle. From the short amount of time that it would run, it looks like I was getting fuel pressure in the high 40s. My battery is less than a year old, but I'm going to go have it tested just to be sure.

I made a little progress last night. I had read that these rigs don't like low voltage and I had been cranking the truck a lot, so I put the battery charger on it for quite some time to get a full charge on it. I also read about the asd relay giving some people issues, so I swapped it with the cooling fan relay. I was able to get the truck to run, but not without issue. I ran the truck for probably 10-15 minutes and it cut off on me probably three or four times - each time starting back up with no issue. Interestingly enough, the electric cooling fan never turned on (Is there a temperature that it automatically cuts on, or do I have to be running the AC or something?). The temperature gauge went to just shy of 210 and stayed there. While the truck was running, the idle wasn't perfect. There was a slight hesitation occasionally - sometimes very minor and other times it lead me to think it was going to cut off again but didn't. I think I will go back and rent the fuel pressure tester again. That way I can get an idea of what the pressure is reading while idling. I can also do the leak down test as well.

So if I have fuel and air, then all that is left is spark. I'll have to wait till I have a friend around to help crank the motor while I check one of the plugs.

The distributor pickup coil made no difference. I rented a fuel pressure tester. The first time I connected it and put the key in run, the pressure was low, but after trying to start it, the pressure went to around 40 psi. I still can't get the truck to start, but when cranking I'm only seeing about 28 psi. Is that too low? I know when it's running it should be around 49 plus or minus 5 psi, but I didn't know if cranking pressure was different.

"Fit" is probably the wrong word to use. The parts look identical from what I can tell, so it actually "fits" in the vehicle, but there must be some difference if there are different part numbers. Regardless, I was still experiencing problems with the non-mopar crank position sensor I bought from Rock Auto. I can't even get the truck to start with my original one anymore - that leads me to believe it wasn't the culprit. I'm going to stop on the way home and rent a fuel pressure tester; I'll go ahead and pick up a distributor pickup coil too. It's a $40 part and if it doesn't solve my issue, it's really easy to swap out and I can take it back.

68281273aa - it's what the Mopar website said fit a '97 Cherokee.

I put in a new Mopar crank position sensor and I can get the truck to fire with a little bit of gas, but it immediately dies even if I continue to give it gas. I'm a little stumped.

When I got home today, I decided to retest both crankshaft position sensors. The new one tested bad and the old one tested good. It's possible that the coil was really my problem since the plug was broken, but I replaced the CPS first. I can't send the new one back because it's been too long; I could have it warranted through the manufacturer, but I don't want another one of their's. That's $50 down the drain. I did find a Mopar one on Amazon for about $72, so I might go that route. First I think I'll swap the old CPS in and see if I still have issues.

It's a full '97 conversion. No codes.

The crankshaft position sensor I bought was not a Mopar one and I have read that some of the aftermarket ones aren't very good. I've read that I should get infinite resistance between terminals B and C on the sensor, but that test would only fail if I get a crank no start condition. I've never gone out to the truck and had it not start. Sometimes I've had to give it a little gas to get it going, but it never just didn't start.

So, I've had some intermittent problems that I'm struggling to solve. It first started a couple months ago when I started up the truck and as I was pulling out of the driveway, it just died. It happened one more time and then it was good for the rest of the day. Fast forward the next time I drove it and it was awful. It would die sitting still, moving, almost die and come back, etc. The motor would always crank back up though. From everything I read, it sounded like the crank position sensor, so I replaced it, along with a new front oxygen sensor, distributor cap and rotor (those were things that were not replaced when I did the '97 conversion and I have over 214k miles on the engine). The next time I drove it, it did fine for about 10 minutes and then I couldn't keep it running. It would run for a bit and then die. Each time it died, it would get harder and harder for it to start again. It would still crank fine, but just wouldn't get going. I barely got it home that night - after a while I got it to start and had a very stressful drive home. Did some more research and found that the plug on my ignition coil was broken, so I replaced it. Again I drove it for about 10 minutes and it cut off on me twice. I checked all my connections and drove it again with no problems. Yesterday I went to drive it and a quarter mile from my house it started chugging (learching?) so I got out of the gas and if I'm not mistaken, it looked as if the revs hung for a bit before coming back down (it was hard to tell with the chugging and I was more concerned about getting out of the way of traffic as I wasn't moving very quickly). After I turned around, I had no more issues, but I just parked it back in the driveway. Any ideas? My next thought was maybe a failing fuel pump, but I was under the impression that when a fuel pump goes, it just dies and you get nothing. My problems are sporadic.

With Photobucket's new policy of charging $400 for 3rd party hosting, I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this build thread. I have 600 photos on their site and a good majority of them are related to my truck and all my other Jeeps.

Ugh... I have 600 photos on PB. My build threads were as much for me as they were for others. I can't imagine going back and correcting every linked picture in the 700+ posts of my build thread.

I'm still working on a couple pieces of trim (mainly the trunk trim), but here it is: This is obviously in the shade. It looks a lot bluer in the sun, but I'm extremely happy with the color.

The truck kept having a situation where it would just die on me (sitting still, moving, whenever). Looks to have been a bad crank position sensor. Installed a new one of those, a new O2 sensor and also a new distributor cap and rotor for good measure. One day real soon, the catalytic converter is going to be replaced.

I just put it in the stock location as it was in the Cherokee. There was a bracket for it right on the firewall. Is there something preventing you from doing the same?

Today I ordered a new rear main seal, oil pan gasket, timing cover gasket set with front seal and oil filter housing adapter o-rings. Time to take care of some extremely slow, but pesky leaks. I guess I'm fortunate that it's not any worse at 214k miles.