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Hasn't started in 4 and a half years

J

Jeepsterboy101

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Ramona (San Diego), CA
So pretty much my 99xj has been sitting in my backyard for the past 4 and half years. It was stripped and torn apart and sadly forgotten about.

Anyways, is there anything special I need to do to start this thing again? Im going to change all the fluids, drain the gas, and change the plugs. The Jeep only has 90k miles on it and ran perfect before. So anything else I should look at or is this pretty straight forward?

Thanks for the help and looking forward to rebuilding the Jeep again.

-Scott
 
NAXJA wants a 99xj for the giveaway, send them pics and specs maybe you will get it sold.
 
Before spending time changing fluids and such I'd see if you can turn the engine over by hand to see if it's seized up or not. If it's not seized then change fluids, fresh gas, new plugs, and should fire right up after a few tries. My xj sat for over a year without even being turned over by hand, checked it and it wasn't seized up so poured some fresh gas in the tank and left everything else temporarily and it fired up after a couple of cranks.
 
Removing the spark plugs and putting some motor oil or marvel mystery oil in the cylinders and then letting that sit for a while before you dig in might be a good idea.....
 
What you should do depends on how long you want it to last after you start it. I would swap all of the fluids before turning it over.
 
I would remove the plugs, change the oil fresh gas all new fluids, leave out the plugs dump some marvel in the plug holes and crank it for a little bit. Good luck
 
If you can shoot a vid of it when you crank it up.
 
Jeepsterboy101 said:
Is it pretty simple to turn the engine over by hand? Not sure how to do that. Thank you for all the tips guys. Hopefully get to it sometime next week. Keep ya guys posted.
Click to expand...

take the belt off and use a breaker bar on the bolt that goes through the harmonic balancer to turn the engine over by hand. as stated above squirt some marvel mystery oil (available at any parts store) in the cylinders before doing so, the reason for doing this is the cylinder walls like get a light coat of rust on them from condensation when the engine sits still for long periods of time. it also helps to lubricate the piston rings and help make sure nothing is going to seize up and scratch the cylinder walls. just make sure the plugs are still out when you crank it over the first time with the starter to make sure the oil you squirted in there has a place to leave the cylinders.
 
Jeepsterboy101 said:
Is it pretty simple to turn the engine over by hand? Not sure how to do that. Thank you for all the tips guys. Hopefully get to it sometime next week. Keep ya guys posted.
Click to expand...

If you pull the plugs as suggested, you can put a socket on the harmonic balance and use a ratchet/breaker bar to manually crank the engine. That way you can make sure it's not seized and spread the oil you inject into the spark plugs holes around.

Of course, the fuel system needs to be drained and flushed. You could apply 12v directly to the fuel pump to push fresh gas through the system.
 
Dang... GrimmJeeper beat me by a few minutes. :)
 
If it's been sitting a long time, check the air intake for mouse nests, and also the exhaust. Not much you can do about the exhaust, but don't be surprised if a big cloud of fluff and mouse bits blows out, and have an extinguisher handy.
 
i have never had to deal with a jeep motor thats been sitting for that long, but on anything else i usually use some diesel in the cylinders..not a whole lot, a few CC's goes a long way,Change oil/filter. look for rats nests in intake.
DISABLE ignition and crank engine steady untill oil pressure has been built.

you dont want to "get lucky" and have your motor fire right away when everything in the block is bone dry and hydro lifters are hating life.


install plugs/gas/ignition and fire it up

My XJ sat for a while over winter, and it ran like a sack of crap once i fired it up, turns out a rat/mouse had some of my injector harness for lunch ..
if things are not workin right just have a good look over everything if you live in mouse area..XJs make a nice home for the critters when it gets cold out.
 
if ya get it running you shold post up a seafoam burnout vid :) and good idea on the fire extiguisher..i have one mounted in cab so i forget about it, but yes, very good idea to have one on hand.
 
birchlakeXJ said:
Removing the spark plugs and putting some motor oil or marvel mystery oil in the cylinders and then letting that sit for a while before you dig in might be a good idea.....
Click to expand...

agreed... make sure it at least will start and run before spending money on oil and such other than to fill to the correct levels. Change that stuff out before it hits the road, and then change it again after 1,000 miles as a 'soft' engine flush and a 'soft' transmission flush.

Use a ATP brand trans filter (comes in a red box with a funky 1980s 'grid' pattern). Made in USA and those fiber gaskets seal A LOT better than the crappy cork gaskets that came with the Wix filter. <the Wix filters for my Honda Civic DD are made in China. Normally I like wix, but for "wheez-n-whine" the DD and Jeep's AW4 transmission, I'll steer clear of Wix. And, under no circumstances, will I trust Fram. I had an oil filter failure with them. Time to end my filter rant...

http://www.atp-inc.com/


Being a nice guy, I ran a 'find retailer' for the San Diego, CA area...
http://atp-inc.com/LocationResults.aspx?&cname=BizSearchResult&Searching=1&fullcrit=&zip=&city=San%20Diego&state=CA&country=&m=25&tag=Parts
 
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