So one recommendation from the good folks at IFSJA.org was to ditch the stock ignition module and go with a MSD box. I bought one off of Amazon.com, including the adapter plug to get it to mate with my stock distributor. The coil was good, so this seemed like a good idea.
What a disaster.
I mounted the box on the driver's side near the charcoal canister and cruise control box. It fit easily and allowed across the engine access to battery, the coil, and the distributor.
Unfortunately, I just can't get the dang thing to run. I've got it hooked up right (I think), and I'm getting spark when I do the bolt-in-the-plug-wire test against the inner fender. But when it is all plugged in and ready to go, I'm getting backfires out the carb. Timing is off.
I bought a timing light, but it's too cheap to be of much use. A waste of money. I tried rotating the distributor a little in each direction, but this made no substantive change. I'm having a hard time figuring out how timing could have jumped so far without the distributor moving. The timing chain is an Edelbrock double roller and has maybe a thousand miles on it. I'm sick of this.
It's been several days. I was worried that maybe it wasn't getting fuel, so I tried to roll it down the hill from its parking spot beside the garage, but that was a disaster too. It got caught up on a damned yucca at first, but eventually I got it in the street down in front of my neighbor Frank's house. He's a good guy and doesn't mind at all. Parked on his driveway is an old Chevy pickup with a camper shell. It gets started up and revved high every few days to get it alive. I'm not sure the hard revving is helping it, especially since it doesn't get driven much, but that's his business.
Now the transmission is leaking an insane amount. What the hell is going on? My Jeep is acting a bit geriatric: has no energy and can't control its bladder.
I'm going to have to give up on this for now. I've called Jeeps R Us in Laguna. They have a great reputation for getting old Jeeps running, even being featured in JP Magazine a few times. There's even a gigantic Cherokee FSJ that they have named Matilda that is a running billboard for their skills. I'm calling a tow truck, dropping this thing off, and throwing money at it (or out the window). They'll get the tranny leak fixed and the starting issue resolved, I'm sure.
----------UPDATE------------
I got the Jeep back in mid-January '13 but forgot to add in a blog entry to mark the date. The work was incredibly expensive, which irritates me for two reasons: 1) I didn't want to spend so much money just to get it running when it already had been; 2) Jeeps R Us was lousy in communicating the cost of the repair work for my approval. I was just confronted with sticker shock when I got the call that the Jeep was ready. The vast majority of the cost was labor alone, and I don't see how trained mechanics should struggle so much just getting a Jeep started when the engine's been rebuilt and the bulk of the ignition system parts were in perfectly fine operating condition (testified to by the fact that they did not need to be replaced). They put in a new rotor for distributor and a new coil and adjusted the timing. Seems like they could have been more efficient and effective with their time (which equals my money). Hell, fixing the tranny leak was only a third of their labor bill.
On the plus side, they welded on a front Class Three receiver hitch using a factory hitch they had lying around the shop. This wasn't expensive, comparatively.
Jeeps R Us got the job done, but I'm not impressed with their billing/estimate process or their communication, so I'll be looking elsewhere for future FSJ repair work.
Now the transmission is leaking an insane amount. What the hell is going on? My Jeep is acting a bit geriatric: has no energy and can't control its bladder.
I'm going to have to give up on this for now. I've called Jeeps R Us in Laguna. They have a great reputation for getting old Jeeps running, even being featured in JP Magazine a few times. There's even a gigantic Cherokee FSJ that they have named Matilda that is a running billboard for their skills. I'm calling a tow truck, dropping this thing off, and throwing money at it (or out the window). They'll get the tranny leak fixed and the starting issue resolved, I'm sure.
----------UPDATE------------
I got the Jeep back in mid-January '13 but forgot to add in a blog entry to mark the date. The work was incredibly expensive, which irritates me for two reasons: 1) I didn't want to spend so much money just to get it running when it already had been; 2) Jeeps R Us was lousy in communicating the cost of the repair work for my approval. I was just confronted with sticker shock when I got the call that the Jeep was ready. The vast majority of the cost was labor alone, and I don't see how trained mechanics should struggle so much just getting a Jeep started when the engine's been rebuilt and the bulk of the ignition system parts were in perfectly fine operating condition (testified to by the fact that they did not need to be replaced). They put in a new rotor for distributor and a new coil and adjusted the timing. Seems like they could have been more efficient and effective with their time (which equals my money). Hell, fixing the tranny leak was only a third of their labor bill.
On the plus side, they welded on a front Class Three receiver hitch using a factory hitch they had lying around the shop. This wasn't expensive, comparatively.
Jeeps R Us got the job done, but I'm not impressed with their billing/estimate process or their communication, so I'll be looking elsewhere for future FSJ repair work.
