XJ shooting Flames

[cherokee89]

Well, I finally finished the AW4 transmission swap. Got it all hooked up... and then had ignition problems. Tried a few different things and it ended up being the Jeep had fouled almost all of the spark plugs. (these are fairly new plugs...)

I changed the plugs out and it fired right up with a REALLY rough idle. Any time I pushed the gas, it sounded as if it were going to die and the RPMs did not seem to go up at all. It back fired a LOT and fire was shooting out the tailpipe when I attempted to rev it.

I drove it around the parking lot for a bit at idle when the guys I was working on it with yelled at me to stop... the catalytic converter was glowing bright RED. We all figured that it was clogged up so badly that it was restricting air flow so we took it off and tried again.

Still the same problem... just a lot louder now without any muffler or cat. We tried changing the spark plug wires, the distributer rotor, the distributer cap, checked the fuel pressure... everything we could think of. Any ideas?
Please help... I miss OFF ROAD!!!

[Curly]

Did you leave off any ground wires that were attached at the trans to engine bolts? Does your 89 have a Crankshaft sensor? If so, you may have damaged it during the trans install.

Curly

[NVRSTUKXJ]

Didn't the 89 have a ballast on the d/s fenderwell for the fuel pump????.....if the wires came off/broke this would definitely cause a rough idle....a friend had the same symptoms and we also thought it was the cat.....turned out to be a loose wire on the ballast.....hope it helps....

[jeepdude775]

Sounds like a timing problem, ignition or cam.

[AZJeeps TJ&XJ]

Sounds like you still have a ignition/timing problem. If the cat was glowing red, then you are getting too much fuel or it is not burning and the cat is burning it. If the cps is damaged then most likely it wouldn't run and with the ballast resister it would try to shut down as it wouldn't get any fuel. Possible things that I can think of off the top of my head could be: bad plugs, mis-wired, stuck injectors, stuck/bad TPS, weak coil, or timing is off (if you pulled the distributer out, could be off a tooth).