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Distributor Cap - Cylinder 1

If, IF, the distributor is in the right place (read, meaning no one has gorked with it), then it should be right at 5 O'Clock standing on the passenger side for 4.0 L engine.


Euclid said:
My cap isn't labeled for cylinder #1 on my '96 4.0. Does anybody know which pin should be the first cylinder?

thanks
 
Standing on the pasanger side, looking at the spark plug side of the engine, the side the distributor is on, #1 of the distributor cap will be at the 5 o'clock positon.
 
For future reference:
55o3z8.jpg
 
Hard to say, I ran mine like that for about 12 to 18 months while sorted through a dozen other jeep problems (TPS, IAC, IAT, Fuel injectors.................), but when I found the error and fixed it, it ran better and the gas mileage improved. But mine is an 87 Renix. perhaps the HO engines are like the alldata picture? The computers can compenaste some if it is off by one gear tooth (6 versus 5 O'clock), but the rotor can not reach the pin beyond that. It's the spark gap from the rotor tip the cap pin that causes the problem.

I suggest you search here and read the older threads here about distributor indexing problems (horror stories), and see if someone else here will jump in with an answer about your years dizzy.

Is yours entirely stock???

So, HO experts out there, is the #1 cyl index at 6 O'clock on the '96 HO engine, or at 5 O'clock like the Renix engine????



Euclid said:
I hooked it up like the AllData image that I attached and it seems to be running great... Should I change it up?
 
In my particular case I didn't take the cap off of the distributor so nothing should change. I just ripped out my old plug wires assuming the cap would be labeled.
 
Hard to say for sure. I had so many bad parts on this beast when I bought it, that it is dificult to say for sure what part fixed what symptom.

I had a mechanic friend work on it when I first bought it (I was too busy at the time) , but then I had to take over as he was unable solve many problems it had. As I recall it went down hill one day, and I pulled the cap and found oil all inside the cap, as the dizzy shaft seal had gone out. I think that was shortly after I tried using synthetic oil on an engine with 230,000 miles of dyno oil history (god what a mistake that was). Any way I bought a rebuilt alternator from Autozone and noticed that the old alternator was at 6 (or may 4) O'clock, and the instructions that came with the dizzy said it should be 5 o'clock. :scared: I confirmed the 5 O'clock at several spots on the internet. As I recall I had trouble getting it to 5 O'clock, took several stabs at it before I found the sweet spot. I got lucky on the cylinder #1 TDC compression stroke (forgot to check if it was exhaust or compression stroke). Note that the dizzy screws are also and entire 90 degrees off on that alldata image, at least for the Renix dizzy it is.

Any way I just recall it had more power with the new dizzy, than it ever had since I bought it.

outlander said:
ecomike:
what symptoms did you have when your dist was out of wack?
 
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