98 classic wont idle

Just bought a cherokee classic with about 140,000 and it looks great the only problem is in the morning its very slow to turn over and when it does start it wont idle by itself for the first few minutes.. Sometimes i hold the gas at about 1500 rpm for a couple of minutes then i have to hold the brake and drop it into drive.. once its been driven for a couple of minutes it idles fine and starts fine. any suggestions ????:cheers:

Do a tune up on it, plugs, cap rotor, wires, remove the throttle body and take it inside, remove the sensors, give it a good cleaning. Then see what happens and go from there.

Dirty harnesses?
Clean connections first. Start with the Computer, the harness at the front of the airbox, and the harness at the front of the block.

Thank you both...I LOVE THIS SITE!!! As soon as i started the thread a category underneath my question had similar q&a that helped me out .. I put a new battery in and started it for the first time today and no problem, it idled just fine. I will probably do new plugs and wires anyway.. thanks again, im so glad my friend told me about this site:cheers:

Brian Bruno said:

Thank you both...I LOVE THIS SITE!!! As soon as i started the thread a category underneath my question had similar q&a that helped me out .. I put a new battery in and started it for the first time today and no problem, it idled just fine. I will probably do new plugs and wires anyway.. thanks again, im so glad my friend told me about this site:cheers:

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You need to take a whole day:
Parts store run
6 quarts of oil and a filter, I run mobil-1 in all 4 of our jeeps.
2 quarts of Mobil-1 ATF for the transfer case and a small hand pump
Champion plugs, dealer supplied OEM cap, rotor and wires, tube of dielectric grease
10mm hex bit socket for the transfer case fill and drain plugs, remove the fill plug first before you drain it.

Brian Bruno said:

its very slow to turn over and when it does start it wont idle by itself for the first few minutes.. Sometimes i hold the gas at about 1500 rpm for a couple of minutes

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On newer Cherokees when you let the battery run down by leaving on the lights or it gets old enough that you loose one of the cells the low voltage will cause the engine computer to loose it idle settings. The symptoms are rough running and the engine wanting to stall if you don't keep you foot on the gas. After 5-10 minutes, the computer re-learns the idle settings and the engine will idle like normal at about 600-800 rpm's with no stalling.