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4 cyl. a/c pump froze now no start

blondejoncherokee

NAXJA Member
NAXJA Member
Location
sacramento
here is a quote from a guyi might buy a 4cylinder from, i want to get a better idea of what could be wrong :

"Wife was driving and AC pump had no freeon, she adjusted the heater, to the AC position, and Switched the roll bar from high to low(thought she rolled it to off). AC Pump seized, Snapped Belt.

Yanked the AC Pump. Connected the Inlet to the pump and the Outlet from the pump together with a Copper Plumbing Male to Male coupling and some Teflon Tape. Took the Fusible linked wire and completed the circuit by connecting it to the battery. Went and got a smaller belt, tossed it on, Ran good for about a day or two.

Then Started acting as if its not getting any gas. Though it has plenty of Gas. You can smell the excess strong. Changed the Fuel Filter, and Pump anyways.
There is a ticking under the dash... It comes from a relay under the dash, and its not a low ticking, and has never ticked before, but this is a LOUD tick.It only ticks when you turn the key on(Same time as the fuel pump kicks in)

I can get it to fire up, one of several ways.

First, Pull the plug on the ECU for a minute with the key on, and disconnect the battery and it will fire and idle normal, one time and one time only. If I do anything, turn on the headlights, hit the brakes, or even put the clutch in and go to shift gears, it instantanously die.

Secondly, Fire it, holding the off button for the rear defroster, But as soon as I let go of it, the 4x4 lightup for the gear shift lights up,as well as the instrument panel and it dies... Or assuming I hold the rear defroster button in the off position, and do any one of the following; hit the brake, turn on the headlights, attempt to shift, or anything of the sort will kill it immediately as well.

Or yank the fuse(kills the ticking but not the issues) for the Rear Defogger, and as I have the fuse box down, play with the wires and I can get the rear defogger switch to act normal. I don't get the ticking, and I don't have any problems, I can turn on/off the rear defogger, and I have no excessive gas, Can drive to the store, etc, then play hell getting it home...

My Fuel Guage is also going HayWire. And Like I said I can smell it releasing a major excess of fuel. When I turn the key to the on position, the ticking kicks in,and the fuel gauges goes all way to the lower right hand corner(nearly a full tank past full)

I can also remove the gauges fuse, and they still power...."

so i might think that there could be some random electrical problem that could have occurred due to the belt snapping? i didnt think one could just put a new, shorter, belt on, but had to put a pulley on?

this being said, my a/c doesnt work in my jeep as well, and could my a/c bearing freezing up and cause this problem as well if i dont replace it soon?
 
Sounds like someone started unplugging wires to fix the "problem" and might have switched a few around.

About bypassing the A.C.; on our '96 4 cyl. it can be bypassed with a shorter belt, nothing else needs to be moved. I keep the short belt as a spare just in case.

On our '89 I "think" it can be bypassed the same way, but I'm not going out in the rain to check . . .
 
Yeah, it sounds like the guy doesn't know anything about electronics and likely has introduced some electrical gremlins. krochus is right on with that... just thinking about someone who uses the phrase "took the fusible linked wire and completed the circuit by connecting it to the battery" working on an engine electrical system makes my hair stand on end.

EDIT: I bet you can fix it though, the good thing about such "repair jobs" is that they usually stick out like a sore thumb, so a little bit of paging through the relevant FSM will find enough schematics and color codes for you to put it back how it was supposed to be.
 
yah thats what im hoping for. he doesnt know jack about jeeps, im just not familiar with the 4cyl. the jeep is so cheap and he swears it ran great so i could possibly even part it out even if i couldnt get it to run. i was just seeing if this is a familiar prob with the 4cyl or if he prob screwed it up. i think he screwed something up. yah i was thinking i would follow every wire around and check all connections and grounds. the good news is that if i get it running itll cost me almost nothing and if not ill sell the 4cyl axles. prob has 4.10s or 4.56's if its an auto
 
I would worry about checking everything else out that you normally would check when you buy a vehicle. Oil pressure, tranny function, 4WD function. The electrical isn't that hard to fix. I wonder if he even has good 12V power.
 
yah im extremely thorough. my brothers and friends take me on all of their used car purchases. i bring a full tool box and fluids as well. check t case fluid, diffs, i have pulled off diff covers before buyinga jeep twice, check everything under the hood. and then its the questions: did you replace the radiatior and water pump yet? cuz if you havent im going to have to(most jeeps i buy are arounf 180K+ range) motor mounts, coolant oil, oil presure, i can go on and on. i once had a guy tell me i did more maintenence on his jeep just when i came to test drive it than he had done in the previous 2 years! scary!
i just wanted to get a heads up. i knew by that email he was a complete moron and that im expecting he probably did somethig retarded with the electrical system and that itll prob be an easy fix, but sometimes naxja gives a good point i never thought or something i didnt know about the 4cyl.
ill prob even pull a plug or two, check distributor, check out the intake, check 4x4, etc etc. ive talked every jeep ive ever bought down by telling them how little they actually have done maintenence wise and how much i am going to have to do to it to get it back to normal. only on non-jeepers, jeeps always give greta prices and know what they have...
 
So you probably already know to check the cylinder compression. I did that one time when buying a Kharmann Ghia off a used car lot. I was surprised they let me do it, but for me, it convinced me that the motor was basically in good condition.
 
sweet! i usualy bring my mittyvac vacuum pump as well....
im realy looking forward to the 4cyl!
 
The symptoms sound like the infamous head to firewal braided ground strap. I would be surprised if it is at all related to the AC.
 
yah i am gonna look at his grounds as see whats up. he says he can get it to run for 10-15 minutes and then it shuts off. he says the brake pedal turns on the dash lights and when it gets to the point that it shuts off, and if he does anything at all, like hit the brakes, or hit any switches on the dash the thing will shut off and die. my guess is that he might have tried to fix it and royally screwed up the wiring. i need to see it all before i check it out.
 
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