96 Xj Wont start

I was changing the cap and rotor the other day and of course nothing can go easy.... One of the bloody bolts breaks off on the cap... (why couldn't they just use clips like in my charger i don't know.... SO then i go to drill it out and use a screw extractor.... As im drilling im thinking this just might work... But of course i get ahead of myself cause when i try the extractor it breaks off in the bolt... SO now i got a broken hardened extractor in the hole which cant be drilled out..

So I bought a new distributor and yanked it (I forgot to find tdc before i yanked it but I did it after)

I found tdc by plugging the new one hole with my finger. Cranking the engine until it pushes my finger off then align the mark on the balancer with the first mark on the on the cover (the one of the furthest right looking at the front.. Tell me if thats wrong)

Then I set the rotor so it would line up with the #1 plug on the cap and put it in. Put it all together and fired it up.. But it wont start... It just turns over and just before it sounds like its gonna start it wont.

What am i missing? Am I maybe out 1 tooth or something? I'm going insane. I've spent 6 hours on it todaya nd nothing...

180 degrees out? The oil pump is driven off the dist so it's possible it was TDC on the exhaust stroke and not the compression stroke. But if you cranked it over without the dist is there you might have to use a flat blade screwdriver turn turn it until the dist goes in right all the way.

I fliped it 180 to make sure and still nothing

used the screwdriver to get it to line up

You are going to have to rotate the engine to the TDC mark again with the cap off and see that the rotor is pointing to #1. If it doesn't work there rotate the engine back to the TDC mark but with the rotor pointing opposite #1, pull it out and put it in at #1. You mave have flooded it if the timing was off so pull the plugs (pull one out to see if it's soaked with gas) and blow out the cylinders or try flooring the throttle and cranking it over a little bit. When the engine controller sees the throttle wide open during cranking it will turn the injectors off (clear flood feature).

Is it a fixed distributor or not? Its got a prong / slot on it where the bolt goes through

While the dist housing will go in only one way you can put the rotor/gear in anyway as long as the oil pump is turned for it to drop in.

I shifted all the wires over counter clockwise and it ran but ran rough... does it mean my distributor is out a bit now?

Its weird to cause the #1 on the cap is not where the #1 was on the old cap...

Got it running.... I tried finding tdc and installing it again.. Must've been off one tooth retarded or something cause its running nice now. Was a little hard to start guessing it was a bit flooded but once it was going it ran great.

Only prob now is my check engine light is on. Could it be a stored code or something? Is there a tutorial on reading engine codes on this site?

NewOld96xj said:

Got it running.... I tried finding tdc and installing it again.. Must've been off one tooth retarded or something cause its running nice now. Was a little hard to start guessing it was a bit flooded but once it was going it ran great.

Only prob now is my check engine light is on. Could it be a stored code or something? Is there a tutorial on reading engine codes on this site?

Click to expand...

Glad you got it runnning. You cycle the key on-off-on-off-on and the check engine light will flash out the codes, only problem is a 96 can have 2 O2 sensor codes and you'd need a scan tool to figure out which one it is.

You can reset it by disconnecting the battery.

how do u count the codes? Is there a list of codes and what they mean? I tried counting it before and was confused...

Try this:
http://www.jedi.com/obiwan/jeep/dtc.html