Oops... crank, no start.

I made a Halloween boo boo... decided to finally wash down the engine bay on my '96 XJ 4.0 since I was tired of being covered in grease and grime every time I went near it. Pulled the air box out, put plastic grocerry bags over the two hoses going into it, pulled the plug and coil wires, put a plastic bag over the distributor and the alternator and sprayed the engine bay down. Hindsight being 20/20, that was a bad idea. Went to start it, crank, no start. Must've tried that 5 times and still nothing. Checked the cap, didn't see anything under it, noticed the coil wire terminals were nasty and rusted, walked to the parts store, got a new wire and a can of starting fluid. Put new wire in, sprayed it with some starting fluid, and it would fire for a second and then die. Sprayed it with starting fluid and tried cranking until my battery almost died, and still nothing, in fact it seemed to get worse. Checked for fuel at the hose that leads into the hard line and had a bit come out. Once I got a tow home today, I charged the battery and checked the coil and distributor while it was charging. Coil tested good with my ohmeter, but I noticed two cracks in the casing. Cap and rotor seem like they've seen better days, but it was running with them before this. Cleaned up the contact surfaces and put them back in. Also checked the CPS and it looks okay apperance-wise. Noticed some crud in the bottom of the distribotor housing, not a lot, but a bit. Tried cleaning that up as best as I could. And yet, it's still doing the same thing...

Ideas? I haven't checked for spark from the wires yet, but I can tomorrow. Right now, I'm thinking I cooked a sensor or God forbid, the ECU which is preventing the injectors from delivering fuel. I should also add that all the idiot lights and stuff are coming on.

Probably water got into something important. Unplug and clean/dry all the wire plugs. Replace the coil, and any tired out tune-up parts. Wire brush and snug up all the battery/starter/alternator/ground wire connections. It might dry out and fix itself.

Check for water in the power box on passenger side next to battery. You may need to remove and check each relay.

Spark plugs could be fouled by now too. Pull at least one out and take a look. If wet, pull them all out and clean plugs with starter fluid. Crank the motor a little to blow out any excess fuel.

Update- Pulled #2 plug (just because it's easiest to get to) and noticed it was wet. Pulled the rest of the plugs and they were dry. *shrug* Noticed they all had a good, orange-ish brown color, cleaned all with starter fluid and reinstalled. Also pulled the PDC box apart, looked dry, pulled all fuses and relays and sprayed all contacts, top and bottom with contact cleaner. Verified I had a 5 volt reference signal at a couple different sensors (MAP, ECT, TPS, etc) so I don't think the ECU's fried. Finally got around to checking for spark. Pulled #1 spark plug wire, plugged it into my adjustable spark checker, set the gap at .035", jumpered it to the body ground next to the battery and nada. Looks like I get to do my ignition tune-up sooner than I expected. *sigh*

I also noticed that with the key in run, I wasn't seeing any voltage between the 2 wires on the primary (low voltage) side of the coil. Is this normal? Seems to me that the circuit should be closed and charging the primary winding in this situation. Should I back probe and see if the voltage fluctuates (on/off, on/off) when cranking?

More info- looks like I'm getting about 6, 6.5 volts on the control side of the fuel pump and ASD relays with the key in run. Also tried removing the crank position sensor to check it. Finally gave up and decided it would be better to try and pull it from the top with a shiny new set of ratcheting wrenches. Or crow's feet. Or offset flare nut wrenches. Or something. Did however decide to label my Haynes electrical diagram with 5V reference, signal, and ground wires (since I know what these things are and how sensors work) and noticed clicking coming from the relays in the power distribution center and a buzzing from somewhere when I reconnected the connector to the crank sensor with the key in run. I'm guessing that's a good sign, but haven't noticed it when I reconnected any other sensors (cam sensor, TPS, MAP, etc)

Turns out the crank position sensor was shot. Think I set a new world record for replacing that thing lol. It starts running rough around 1,500 RPM, probably just needs an ignition system tune-up, but it's starting and running.