First time posting...the car has roughly 140k on it. The problem is, when you're driving it just dies on you. The tach goes to zero and seconds later there is no power. But, there are times that the tach goes to zero and it does not die. No check engine light comes on, so this is no help. I checked the crank sensor, it was good, I replaced the coil pick up thinking it was going bad. Any suggestions?
'96 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0L - dies while driving......
Oct 03, 2003
11 Replies
Dirty ground strap from the firewall to the engine head caused that for my 88 Cherokee.
Figured it out when backing out of the driveway to park it after a CPS change. Sucker up and died on me again.
Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT'sEd Wojciechowski wrote:
Stop calling it a "car"... It's a Jeep, you pissed it off. I'd guess you have a short somewhere. This used to happen to my Taurus... it would die, i'd turn the key to off then restart it. It would start every time. It would die about every 50 miles (makes a 300 mile trip annoying... had to drive in right hand lane the whole way so that in case it died I could pull over). I never figured out what the problem was, I sold it instead.
Straight higway. Just died. No bumping that I recall (about 10 years ago now)
Approximately 10/3/03 08:25, Ed Wojciechowski uttered for posterity:
Check the crankshaft position sensor. You may also want to pull the fault codes. Allegedly on the 96 ZJ you'll need a scan tool, which a local parts place may be willing to do.
That sounds exactly like the crankshaft position sensor is crapping out.
Jerry
Ed Wojciechowski did pass the time by typing:
Hmm.
Well, if your sure it's not the CPS, that leaves a few other options. A bad ESD relay (Emergency Shutdown) can do this. 9.00 part but can be easily tested. It's in the relay center behind the battery.
What do the codes tell you?
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Tach hitting zero sounds more like an electrical problem, the CPS (Cam Position Sensor) located in the distributor might be your cause.
Other possibilites are loose ground/pos connections, rusted out engine ground strap, etc.
Start with the codes.
As an aside, how did you check and determine that the crankshaft position sensor was good? If it's intermittent, it'd be hard to know for sure one way or the other.
Jerry
I had an intermittent CPS on my J**P a few years ago, it would keep stalling and would die, when the tach dropped to zero, unless you happened to "punch" the gas at the correct time, but achieving this timing was difficult when your in the passing lane doing 70-80 mph down the highway (not to mention the pucker factor involved). Eventually after many trips to the stealership the J**P expert (he knew his J**P's inside and out, very good guy) decided to change the CPS on spec. 4 years ands thousand of km's later no more problems with unwanted stalling.
Snow... 93 XJ, 4.0, 90% stock & 85% new.
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