Bull's dead, I'm stumped.

[Sitting Bull]

I've been driving the Jeep a lot more lately, it's been running very well and I was finally starting to build up some confidence in it. Poop on that, dang thing left me stranded today. I'm looking for diagnosis help. Here's the problem/description...

Jump in the Jeep to meet Greg and grab some lunch. My gas guage sucks, so I figure I'd better put 10 bucks in just in case.

Drive 25 miles to the restaraunt, some highway, some city, Jeep driving great. Go inside and grab some grub, come out about 2 hours later.

Jump in and fire her up. The throttle response seems a little off, so I drive around the parking lot a bit. For some reason, my motor has no power. I'm getting stuck on parking lot hills with my foot on the floor and the engine at 1500 rpm right before it dies. Cell phone takes half a crap as Greg is leaving...great timing on that one.

Figure maybe she just needs warmed up. So I let it idle for a while and hit the road. Same thing. Dies on me, but luckily I have enough momentum to get into the parking lot.

Everytime I tried to restart it, it would. Not real bad either, kinda fired right up.
In park or nuetral, the engine will go up the rpm range ok, but it just feel sluggish. When in drive, no power. Basically, my engine has no *** .

So, I go through the typical stuff...bad gas maybe, perhaps fuel filter. Call Curtis, you know, my typical diagnostic routine. Curtis suggest fuel pump, or filter maybe. (My cell phone is somewhat working now, but I have no screen on it...lots of fun typing numbers like that). Send Jolie after parts.

Replace fuel pump and filter in the parking lot. And add 10 gallons of 93 octane, to conteract any bad fuel. Same problem.

Start to call a tow truck...and then figure it is still running, and I can get up hills in low range...so what the hell, let's see how she does.

Get on 285, takes me forever to get up to 50 mph, hit 400 north, same thing. As I'm driving, every now and then if feels like I have power, then just goes away. At the top of long hills I'm going 40 mph on 400!

Hit highway 92, I've got ten miles to go and I'll make it home. I make 9, then she dies. Won't restart.

OK, I've had lots of weird crap in the past with coils/ignition modules, so I send Jolie out for both. Replace those in the other parking lot I made it too. No start - not even a stumble. The starter sounds really wierd as well. More whiny than usual.

Sit there for about an hour and try again. Nothing. Give up and call a tow truck.

So, here's the problems...my motor has no *** , I've replaced the pump, filter, added high octane gas, coil and ignition module. Right now, it won't even start.

Could be the carb, but it's been running great for the last 3000 miles, and it just doesn't seem like a carb would die sitting in a parking lot.

I'm looking for trouble shooting tips and how to diagnose single items. How can I tell if my coil is getting or putting out enough power? etc. etc.

Side note, I also checked the distributer cap, everything looked fine.

[ August 22, 2004, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: Sitting Bull ]