Recent content by tdicola

As crazy as it sounds, people have actually died from touching a multimeter like that: http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html If you break the skin the resistance through your blood is very small and even a small current through the heart (from hand to hand) is enough to disrupt...

Thanks for the advice everyone. I replaced my CPS over the weekend and so far my XJ has been driving great without any stalls or stumbles. Will watch things over the week but I think this might have fixed the problem.

Thanks for the advice. As far as I know the CPS has never been changed so it wouldn't surprise me if its going bad. Is there any way to test the sensor with a multimeter before replacing it?

Hi all, over the past couple weeks I've noticed some problems with my '99 XJ that seem to be getting worse. Here are the symptoms: - Randomly one or twice a drive the engine will stumble or completely cut out while waiting at a stop light. Foot is on the brake and transmission (automatic) is...

Thanks everyone for the advice. I managed to get the rear shocks mounted tonight. I ended up taking the bar pin eliminators off by getting a slightly offset wrench on the bolts. With some PB blaster the bolts came right off and freed the shocks. It was actually a bigger pain to get the new...

I'm trying to change the rear shocks in my '99 XJ and ran into a problem taking out the old shocks. The previous owner put a small lift on with bar pin eliminators for the rear shocks. I removed the bottom mount of the rear shock but am having problems with the top. I took off the nut but the...

I'm thinking of getting a set of his cables to replace my old ones. Aside from cost is there any good reason not to go for the 1 gauge set? Are they tougher to route or take up a lot more space? I don't have immediate plans for an alternator upgrade but it would be nice to not worry about...

Thanks all for the advice. I took everything apart and wow it was a lot less trouble than I expected. It looks like the previous owner had a good quality stereo installation done because all the clip and screw holes had little stick on felt pads covering them. Anyone know where more of these...

Hey all, I'm planning to take most of the dash trim apart this weekend so I can hard wire in a GPS cradle. While I have the trim out is there anything I should look at or fix? Car is a '99, automatic, 4 liter with 150k miles. I'm planning to pull out the instrument cluster to clean the...

Almost the exact same thing just happened to me tonight with my 99. Started the car and after the cluster light check finished (check engine, airbag, etc. turned on then off) the airbag light came on and my turn signals didn't work. The brake lights worked but I could hear a relay flipping...

I just mounted Rusty's hitch on my '99 and it's pretty nice--it looks similar to the hidden hitch. Not super cheap but good quality and has all the hardware for mounting. http://rustysoffroad.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=rustys&Product_Code=RR-RH10-XJ&Category_Code=rec_hit When...

I cut off the anti-rattle clips today (small 8" bolt cutter from Harbor Freight worked perfectly to do it) and wow my brakes are completely silent now. If anyone else has similar problems try removing the anti-rattle clips, it made a world of difference for me.

Interesting, so it might just be normal behavior? I'm planning to do a full tuneup of spark plugs, wires, distributor, etc. pretty soon so I'll see if I can test the TPS at the same time too.

Hey all, I noticed my '99 XJ (auto, 4 liter, 150k miles) surges a bit when I'm off the throttle and coasting. I only noticed it recently when my muffler was off (could hear the exhaust surges) and can see it jumps from ~500-800 RPM. I don't see this behavior at idle, under acceleration, or...

Lots of good advice, thanks!