XJ died, won't start

[CS79bronco]

My daughter's 97 XJ died on us & had to tow it home. Been sitting for 3 weeks. Finally went out in the heat wave yesterday & poked around. The coil is cracked in a few places so I pulled it & tested by the Haynes manual, seems to be good. The wire to the distributor was rusty inside the connector to the coil, scraped it out, tested, open wire. Tried another wire I had for a Ford, still no spark. This started back when the oil filter adapter was leaking. Went to the car wash & cleaned the engine compartment & engine so I could trace the oil leak. It started but ran rough, got it home & dried out the distributor. Then it ran OK, had a check engine light so took it to Autozone for test. Several codes but nothing definite. Next day the light went away & she ran great. Until it died. Started sputtering, lost power, died in a parking lot. Haynes manual gives no help to test the computer, doesn't even tell where it's hidden. Any suggestions & pointers greatly appreciated.

[xaza]

If the coil is cracked it needs to be replaced, even if it appears to operate normally it will allow moisture in which will affect it's output and reliability. I would venture a guess to say you may have an issue in the distributor. As the rust was building on that point it resists the flow of electricity which increases heat and starts to burn things from there down. If you had one wire that was bad it just means it is time to replace them all. The allowable amount of resistance in a spark wire is very very low. I would start with ignition coil and wires and see how it runs from there.

[redneck23ms]

when it wont start do you have fuel pressure? have fire at the plugs? if no fire my immediate thought would be the crank position sensor. pretty common failure on jeeps

[xaza]

Found this and thought it looked resourceful with other articles below.
http://troubleshootmyvehicle.com/jeep/4.0L/how-to-test-the-crank-sensor-1

[CS79bronco]

Thanks guys. I'll replace the coil & wire next warm afternoon. If it won't fire then I'll test the CKP sensor. There is pressure on the fuel rail so likely the CKP, maybe both. I'm having to do this from the library due to computer problems so I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

[CS79bronco]

Replaced the coil & wire, she fired right up & purrs again. Thanks guys.

[xaza]

Glad you got it fixed and up and running. Did you replace all the wires?