88SporTruck Posted November 1, 2009 Share Posted November 1, 2009 Well I was at a friends house a while back and spotted what appeared to be an XJ grill poking out from behind an abandoned boat on his property......I inquired about its status as i was looking for some small stuff for my XJ. Boy was I surprised when he told me it was a comanche and that I could have it for free! It's a 88 SporTruck with the 2.5/AX4/D35 (2WD) 122k miles. Only ONE tiny patch of surface rust on the drivers side cab corner! Bed and rest of body are mint besides the faded paint and cracked grille. Of course the drivers side floorboard has a large hole rotted through it tho..... :grrrr: Now this thing cranks right over and seems to be spraying fuel down the TB but has zero spark. I found a wire harness with a 3 prong plug hanging off the distributor but I cannot find anywhere to plug it into. Also the dist has a vac advance on it that has its line capped off and I can't find the vac line that is supposed to hook to it. The coil checks out fine and I can hear the fuel pump run when I turn the key on. Where does the 3 pin plug from the dist go to? IF anyone has pics of an 88 2.5 dist and how it hooks up that would be amazing. I'm thinking that these dist problems and some dirty old gas are the only things keeping it from firing right up! :hmm: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 1, 2009 Share Posted November 1, 2009 AFAIK the TBI 2.5s did not have a vacuum advance, nor a CmPS. Is the CPS plugged in? First place to look for a no spark is either a bad CPS or an unplugged CPS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 1, 2009 Author Share Posted November 1, 2009 Ok then I have some random dist stuck in there then! it def has a vac advance and looks just like the pic in my servce manual of an 84-85 carbed 4cyl jeep dist. I'm thinking somewhere along the line somebody just stuck any old random 4cyl dist in there! The CPS is plugged in but I'm thinking it may be bad. If everything else is working shouldnt this wrong dist at least try to give some spark? Is it hurting anything to have that dist in there even if the vac advance and internal electronics are not hooked up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 1, 2009 Share Posted November 1, 2009 Do you get spark if you ground a spark plug straight from the coil? It's possible someone just dumped an old carbed dist in there, but I can't be sure. I've never run a Renix 2.5 You can test the CPS with a multimeter that can check ohms. IIRC the correct range is between 127 and 275 ohms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 1, 2009 Author Share Posted November 1, 2009 NO spark direct from coil. I plugged a brand new NGK plug into the wire direct off the coil and grounded it against the alternator casing and got no spark at all. I used the alt case as everything else was covered in dust and grease and it was the only piece of clean metal i could find within reach of the wire that had continuity to ground. I'm thinking more and more that this is just a bad cps. the cap on this wrong dist is def used as you can see some marks on the contacts inside that look like any other used cap so I'm assuming it ran at some point with this dist in it. The guy i got it from paid 50 bucks for it as it was not running when he got it and he never did any work to it but is helping me now. EDIT: NAPA lists a distributor pick up assembly for this truck....... Should I be going to the JY to find a correct dist? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 1, 2009 Share Posted November 1, 2009 Alternator casing is aluminum, it may not ground right to see if you have spark or not. Clean off a spot on the body to test with. I'm really thinking it's your CPS as well. But it could be something else. Never know with these things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 1, 2009 Author Share Posted November 1, 2009 NAPA lists the CPS for about 34 bucks so I think I'll try that and see what happens. I don't want to throw a ton of money into a free truck........ Worse comes to worse I can get a JY engine delivered for under 400 with a 30 day warranty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 1, 2009 Share Posted November 1, 2009 Test your CPS before you buy a new one. It very well could be the coil, or even simply a frayed wire somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 1, 2009 Author Share Posted November 1, 2009 I've already done all the resistance checks on the coil and it checked out fine. I'll be sure to test the cps. Frayed wires are a good possibility as there were several mouse nests under the hood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comanche09 Posted November 1, 2009 Share Posted November 1, 2009 If its been sitting more than a year, Definately drain out / clean the gas tank and flush the fuel lines (jumper the fuel pump with the fuel line at the tb disconnect and into a catch can) Been down that road before with bad gas... Once running, change the oil as its been diluted with gas with all the attempted starting and offers little lubrication. Good Luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 3, 2009 Author Share Posted November 3, 2009 Tanks getting drained Wednesday. When i was cranking it the fuel in the TB smelled like 30 year old minwax! Hopefully The CPS solves the no start issue so i can get onto replacing the floorpan and getting this truck painted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 3, 2009 Share Posted November 3, 2009 Let us know how it goes :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oizarod115 Posted November 3, 2009 Share Posted November 3, 2009 hopefully it's just bad gas! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 3, 2009 Share Posted November 3, 2009 hopefully it's just bad gas! I'm sure the gas was bad... but that couldn't be just it. Bad gas doesn't cause a no spark. So hopefully it was bad gas and a bad cps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oizarod115 Posted November 3, 2009 Share Posted November 3, 2009 hopefully it's just bad gas! I'm sure the gas was bad... but that couldn't be just it. Bad gas doesn't cause a no spark. So hopefully it was bad gas and a bad cps! ha. yah forgot all about that by the end of the page :chillin: time for bed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 4, 2009 Author Share Posted November 4, 2009 SHE'S ALIVE!!!! Turns out it was just a corroded connector on the CPS harness. The gas in the tank turned out to be good as well. After sitting outside for nearly 2 years she fired right up and just smoked a little bit for a minute or so then settled down to a nice idle! Thank you all for all your help. Now ive gotta find out why I'm leaking something out below my intake manifold that is burning off on the exhaust and smoking like hell....... But now that I know the motor runs I'm willing to put in the time and effort to fix her up. The friend that gave it to me is even cleaning out his garage so we can bring it inside and redo the floorpans and he is going to help me repaint the whole truck!! (he used to paint cars for a living and has all the equipment) All I need now is a new door lock cyl and igniton cyl (key is broken off in the ign) and to glue the lens back onto the housing of the pass side rear tail and shes ready to go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mythreesons Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Now that it's ALIVE................ :needpics: Scott :D :D :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 5, 2009 Author Share Posted November 5, 2009 Here she is! sorry the pics suck there wasnt much room around the truck as its parked real close to the garage and the MG under the blue tarp. and the possibly wrong distributor thats in there: I still have to clean out the bed. That rusty metal box in there was an antique craftsman circular saw and the box could be folded out to turn the saw into a small tablesaw. It was full of water and looks like its wrecked but i might try to fix it up as it looked like a pretty sweet setup. There also are 3 jeep center caps that are not from this truck in there... its gonna be a treasure hunt digging through all the leaves in the bed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Holy missing cooling system batman. Where's the surge tank? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 5, 2009 Author Share Posted November 5, 2009 its right between the airbox and drivers side fender. Its an open cooling system with a cap on the radiator and the bottle just appears to be the standard type of overflow bottle. also according to the manual the engine diagnostic connectors should be under the dash yet they are under the hood on the pass side inner fender....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 Oh dur. I forgot the 2.5s were all open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 5, 2009 Author Share Posted November 5, 2009 While i was kinda disappointed not to see a 4.0 when i opened the hood the first time I was relieved to not see a RENIX cooling system! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 While i was kinda disappointed not to see a 4.0 when i opened the hood the first time I was relieved to not see a RENIX cooling system! Sorry to disappoint you, but RENIX is an acronym for RENault-BendIX and it refers to the ignition/injection system, not the cooling system. Your 4-banger is also a RENIX, it just happens to be a throttle body injection rather than multi-port. Your truck uses the exact same CPS and coil/ignition module as the 87-90 4.0L. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
88SporTruck Posted November 5, 2009 Author Share Posted November 5, 2009 Yeah I know that the RENIX system is the fuel/igniton part but AFAIK when they switched over to the HO motors and did away with RENIX they also did away with the pressure bottle system so I associate it with RENIX. My Cherokee is a 93 with the H.O I6 so this 88 Comanche is my first experience working on older RENIX era jeeps and its a constant learning process! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted November 5, 2009 Share Posted November 5, 2009 They brought back the pressure bottle when they came out with the Libertine. It's really a good system -- if the "radiator" cap isn't made of plastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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