97 cherokee 4L flooding

I just bought a 97 Cherokee 4.0 automatic 4wd. The person i got it from finally gave up and sold it. He said he has replaced so much stuff and is ready to give up on it. I'm not for sure whats wrong. But i drained the oil, and there was 2 or 3 quarts of gas that first drained out before the oil came out. So, I take it it was flooding. He has replaced the distributor pickup, the crank sensor, or i guess it was that, he said it was on the back of the motor by the flywheel. He changed the fuel pump. I guess he didn't know that it was flooding and just started changing parts. I do have an OTC scan tool to check on some things. The map sensor read 28 or somewhere real close when it was not running with the key on. The tps read 16% not running and went up to 80% or so with no quick or dead spots. As for the rest, I don't know. Does anyone have any ideas? I have to put some oil back in it and change the filter. I have left the spark plugs out overnight to let the cylinders dry out and the plugs as well. I'll throw them back in later with some fresh oil.

I have had one more thought. I was reading some other posts about older engines and sensors. Some were recommending unplugging some to see if anything changed. Is there any sensors that can be unpolugged on this engine and it still be able to function somewhat and start without flooding? I know you can't unplug the crank sensor. One more thing I forgot to mention is that the temperature sensor is reading the
correct temperature, which is the outside temp, because it isn't running.

I'd be inclined to think of one or more leaky injectors before I suspected a sensor if you've got that much gas in the oil.

Well, the person i bought it off of has been messing with it for a couple months or so, and has tried several several times to get it going. He has never changed oil. It was like this when he bought it. So, I don't really know how long its been down and hoe many times it has been cranked. He said he has pumped and held gas down over and over again. But in any case, how do you check for leaky injectors?

Ok, I googled the leaky injector q, and easiest way i saw was to just take the injectors out and see if the leak when the key is on.

Well, I pulled the injectors out and none are leaking. They are pulsing like the should i guess. It seems to me that it might be a little heavy. I don't really know what is normal and what is too much. But the tps seems to be working anyway. I had someone turn it over and i held the throttle open and they quit squirting gas out. I don't really know what the next step is. But I guess it will work out sometime.

Borrowed a computer scanner from a friend and the tps is showing a code for low input voltage. But would this make the vehicle not start at all? It is getting gas and spark. The at rest measurement for the TPS is 16% and at WOT it is around 88%ish. It seemed to go up smoothly. Anyone have any thing to add to my blog about the flooding? Every once and a while a cylinder will fire a few times. Ether will not start it. It is not 180* out of time. When the compression happens the button is pointing at the #1 so that seems to be good. I'm starting to be stumped. Any thoughts on this would be great.

I rounded up a compression gauge. I tested #2 and #5 and it wouldn't pick up on the gauge. It has very little. You can put your finger over the SP hole and hold what is there if you push fairly hard. Can flooding cause compression loss that bad, or is the engine just toast?

If it was ran very much with that much gas in the oil, it would wash down the cylinder walls of oil and score them up pretty badly.

So, does that mean junk, or would lots of thick oil seal it back up to run? I don't know all the history. But all of the gas in the oil could be from the previous owner working on it for several months and cranking and cranking on it day after day. I don't know which came first the thing not running and then getting the gas in the oil, or the gas and then not running. I guess what i was asking does there seem to be a next step and if so what would it be?

If you have 2 cylinders that have little to no compression you have problems, next step would be to pull the head. Its either a headgasket, burnt valve, or scored cylinder walls. So you could replace the headgasket, rebuild the head, or bore the block and rebuild.

Make sure when the PO replaced the distributor he put it in correctly and the firing order is correct to the cylinders. If you have fuel and fire, youre not too far away. I would throw a little Marvel Mystery Oil into the cylinders before cranking again so you know you have some lubrication to the rings. It should still run with 2 cylinders dropped. Not very well but the other 4 should pick up.

Well, I relly only checked 2 cylinders. I checked2 that were not joining cylinders incase the HG was blown or something. I figured that the way it sounded when cranking that if 2 had no compression none had any. I will go in a little bit and throw some more oil in the cylinders and post results.