NAXJA sent me here for diesel advice!

[vmdiesel]

Hi guys. This is my first post here. NAXJA forum sent me here. They said there are diesel experts here. I just had a MASSIVE post written up, and some reason my computer decided to throw a fit and I lost the lot. Ive got an issue with a 1999 XJ Cherokee 2.5 diesel, that no one has been able to sort out. Ive researched everywhere but can't find anything that I haven't tried already. I live in Australia and the mechanics here know very little, if anything about Jeeps. The background is:For the past two years, my jeep has been intermittantly throwing the SKIM light. Sometimes it will be fine, sometimes the light won't go off. It has sat for three months with the light coming on every time I check, then it will be fine for two week, then back on again etc. Ive taken it to Jeep, they replaced the ignition barrel and recut and reprogrammed a new key. Made no difference. They then wanted to change out all of the computers and quoted over $6,000 in total to do it, with no guarantee of a fix. The car went to an autoelectrician and stayed there for two months with no fix.I started pulling into it myself. I pulled the SKIM module, looked for dry joints, found two where the aerial connectors are and resoldered them. I reflowed the connector pins in the ECU and BCM too. Ive cut the chip out of the grey headed key and put it right up on the circuit board of the skim module. If i do this, the Skim light comes on, goes off quickly, then about 3 seconds later the light comes on and stays on. If I don't do this, the skim light comes on for 2 seconds, goes off for two seconds then comes back on and stays on. Ive tried to do the right thing by taking it to the jeep dealer (who isnt exclusively jeep, so they wouldnt do much work on them, but its where the car was bought from new). I'm at wits end with this, I love the car and its original, low miles, well looked after. I can't bear to scrap it. can anyone PLEASE throw out some suggestions? The part numbers I have are :ECU - P56041997ACBCM - P56041996ABSKIM P56009714ACI don't know what is causing the problem, I don't know how to diagnose it. Does anyone know where I can get a non SKIM ECU, or a rebuilt ECU that has had SKIM deleted? I don't know if any of that is right, There is a lot of conflicting info on the internet. Ive even emailed bosch to see if another type of ECU can work with their injector pump. And VM diesel to see if they have a mechanical injector pump. At this point I'm getting deperate and would cut off my right arm to have my jeep back in working order again. Its been way too long. Thanks heaps for reading. Regards from Australia

[shelbyluvv]

http://autocomputerperformance.com/

 

They can disable the SKIM for you.

[vmdiesel]

Thanks for the reply. The concern I have with that is two fold..... first is are they any good? Ive sent them emails with no reply? Secondly, is my ecu to be trusted? Maybe I should buy a known working one and have its skim deleted? What do you think?

[Alexia]

The way SKIM works is easy to defeat by just replacing or reprogramming the computers.(Note: My knowledge is mainly based on the 4.0L engine computers.) All PCMs have SKIM capability that is only activated when the SKIM is plugged into the connector on the steering column. So if you get a PCM without SKIM and remove your SKIM before installing it then it should work.

 

Now, I am unsure about the BCM in the Cherokee since that is not something that came on the XJ in the USA.(No diesel version here.) The BCM on the ZJ and WJ is pretty sneaky and likes to mirror information back to the PCM. So if the BCM in the XJ also stores the SKIM status then it will have to be replaced as well. It seems like getting used units from a non-SKIM XJ would be the cheapest route.

[vmdiesel]

Hey Alexia, thanks for the reply. Can you recommend anywhere to look for used ECU / BCM? none here in australia and google doesnt really return too much. Is there anyone over there that gets into that sort of stuff?