1994 Jeep YJ 1994 Jeep Wrangler

PANTHER1951

MEMBER
1994 JEEP WANGLER YJ
6 CYL
4WD
MANUAL
157,000 MILES

I had my distributor stolen from my jeep, before I realized that it was gone I cranked it over two or three times. I purchased a new distributor, plug wires, plugs and coil. Set the timing according to the repair manual. The jeep does not run like it use to with the new parts installed, it also consumes an extra amount of gas. At Idle when you push down on the accelator and let off it backfires. It also stutters when accelerating at Idle.
There may be multiple problems but the symptoms are:
In 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th gear it has some power but in fifth no matter how much pedal you give it it loses mph. I also noticed that before the above problem the passenger side floor board under the seat is extremely hot. We just replaced the exhaust and intake gasket and also the radiator, hoses and temp gauage. The radiator was leaking and the temp was going above 195 and over 210 while driving in fourth gear. The jeep ran fine before this happened even with the bad spark plugs which I knew needed replaced. Any suggestions?

2 Replies

MADMIKE1735

MECHANIC
951 POSTS

Im not 100% positive, but I know on some older jeeps the distributor has a vacuum advance that has to be disconnected when setting timing, and once thats disconnected, it wants to stall so you have to maintain 2500 rpms while setting base timing. Then when you plug in the vacuum advance, at idle the timing should be I want to say 15 degrees advanced. There are alot of great techs on here that should beable to verify the facts.