• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

Distro Discoveries

Saudade

NAXJA Member
NAXJA Member
Location
SoCal
Well, I'm gearing up for smog test here in CA and doing quite a bit to the old grey ghost. This post is about the distributor.

I noticed some oil leaking around the mount and decided since I have to remove it, I might as well replace it since I need a new cap and rotor anyway.

Good news is, I marked the old rotor position after establishing TDC #1 compression before pulling it, slid the new one in, indexed to the same mark and vroom!!

Now, here are a few pics. First is the group shot after taking the old distrib apart. Can you seen anything wrong?

mtMKRF1.jpg




Note the mounting clamp on the right side. Clamp? Looks like some past owner cut the mounting ears off. I assume they thought they could alter the timing. Funny thing is I've owned the jeep for 20 years and never noticed this. Here's the body with the ears sawn off.

tewsgit.jpg




Next, when I took the ring off, I saw a small chunk of something in the bottom. I tipped the distrib over and it dropped onto my bench. It's a magnet. What?? Apparently the magnet on the sensor broke off. You can see the pic below. Not sure if it came off while I was removing the distributor. There's quite a bit of crud down in there.

AQ5VqSy.jpg




Final item was replacing the plug wires. One more chance to mess this up! Thankfully, I got them right the first time. ;)

It does seem like it starts a bit faster than before. For those that don't have a Renix powered XJ, they do take a bit of cranking to light up. I'll have to see how it goes over the next few days.
 
I was about to deep six the old one and noticed the inside of the ring. I guess the crud inside is metal from the ring hitting the magnet.

fzOFHf0.jpg
 
FYI, I passed smog today. Good for 2 more years. I'll post details in a separate thread.

Jeeps starts quicker and mileage seems to have improved. Haven't gone far enough to quantify yet.
 
:cool: Good job!

I've owned two XJs, an 89 and 96. Both had the
cam sensor fail (magnets came unglued).
When I replaced the last one, I applied extra
epoxy to the magnet, hoping this prevents a
future failure...
 
Back
Top