Jeep xj turns off

Hi there. First of all i have a 89 jeep xj 4.0. Ive been going mudding for the past few days and my jeep dies everytime i cross some medium deep water. I dies and just cranks. i let it sit for around 5min and turns right on. What could it be. I have the bottom of the motor covered, so that much water wont come in. Do u think it could be my o2 sensor, cuz it ripped off a couple of weeks ago and i just tied it up donw thier. This is just my mudding jeep, it has headers, 4.56 gears, magnaflow,snorkel,8mm wires, 6"lift,optima yellow top. And i always put wd40 before i go mudding. ANy suggestions would be good.

lol my 95 cherokee was doing the same thing. i could drive all day, but i would go through bottom of the bumper deep water and it would die and not start again. let it sit a few minutes and it started again. i checked under the hood to see if i was getting any sensor on top of the engine wet and it was all dry. i never did figure it out, i just stayed out of the water and haven't had a problem since.

it would be nice to figure out what it was though, because some of the trails you can only get to by crossing a big creek.

im gonna guess its the distributor getting wet...it doesnt take much water to make it stop working...although maybe the crank sensor is getting wet?? since that is located on the bell housing i believe.

yuor cps (crank position sensor) is about half way up on the drivers side of the bellhousing when you hit the water it is splashed up there after a few minutes it will dry out and run again. i have bought three xj from a local garage that they could not fix for next to nothing than i replace the cps and they are fine its only a $50.00 part.

is there vac lines behind your bumper? i have a canster on my 89 that runs some thing.. just a guess

it's wasn't the distributor in my case. like i said, i checked and everything was dry as far as the distributor and upper sensors on the engine.

i was thinking about the CPS, but why would water on the sensor make it stop working??? i thought it was a magnetic style pickup. it should still be able to detect metal through a little water shouldn't it???

Maybe rather than the actual water, it would be the extreme temperature change FROM the water. Still, a "good" sensor shouldn't be affected one would think. It's gotta go through extremes every day..

so does anybody have any other ideas where to look for this weird "i don't like water on my belly so i'm gonna stop running" syndrome??

ok well today i had my jeep running and decided i would get the the bottom of this. I left the engine on and started spraying with the water hose. First i put water right where the cps sensor is at and it didnt turn off, next i tried spraying the alternator since its way at the bottom,didnt turn off. then i just wet the right side of the engine thru the top and still wouldnt turn off. I also wet the battery and coil and didnt turn off. So i wet the dist a bit and kind of shaked so i sprayed a bit more near the spart plugs and just died. SO i guess i need to make a good protector skid in the bottom of my engine and around the dist and spark plugs. I also want to take the mech fan off b/c it just spreads the water around. Well thanx for all ur opinions. OH by the way the water i was crossing and playing in was up to my just below my lights, and i have a 6"lift. LOL

for your distributor you can just use some silicone. run a small bead around the seam where the cap sits on the distributor to seal it off. use lots of dielectric grease in the ends of the plug wires to keep the water out of there and the same at the spark plug end.

unfortunately that doesn't help my jeep though since my distributor was dry during the water crossing. because when it died i popped the hood and checked everything right away. oh well.....i'll just keep playing till i find something.