Stupid Emissions 89' 4.2L

[kissfrk77]

long story short... new to the jeep arena, (Ford Power) picked up a high mileage 89' w/3 speed 999 A/T. I know that late 80's vehicles have a lot of emissions &&&^%%$$#@@, but holy )*&%@@!$%^&*(! Reading about all the things the CEC needs to satisfiy "closed loop" is mind boggling! Guy i bought it from said it had a fresh "rebuild". Not so sure about what that meant to him, but reguardless, it needed some going over. It actually drove decent for about a month until it started having a trouble holding idle in gear, just wanted to die. That is the main issue, stalls in gear basically. i started looking closer at the motor and realized half of the PCV system is gone! The three solenoids up top near the firewall, no vacuum lines whatsoever, and chased vacuum lines around more and found more stuff disconnected, capped off and straight up gone. I am a pretty decent weekend mechanic and have worked on a fair number of vehicles, including some chevy "electronic carbs" with all that extra ^$#@!%^*(). It is like someone tried to remove all the emissions stuff, but only did half the job. The mystery to me is why it ran ok to begin with. I have checked everything i know, hopefully it is something stupid that i am looking over. I checked for throttle linkage adjustment, kickdown adjustment, idle settings, etc... its got me. on other vehicles with all that emissions (*^&%$$%^&*&*( i have ditched the electronic carb for an aftermarket one, threw a new intake on, and threw out the air pump and called it a day (chevy 305 in a 87' Monte) it ran 10X better and the only consequence was a check engine light that doesn't bother me. Can anyone recommend a quick fix and/or some info on carb/intake swaps? I see some great threads on EFI conversion, but sounds a little out of my budget. Thanks a lot for reading this, it got kinda drawn out i know :)

[YJ4LIFE]

I'm in the same boat but my vaccume lines burned from a alarm horn short near the carb. I need to replace or ditch everything. I'm thinking of junkyard efi swap

there's also nutter bypass. search on that.

i was planning on putting in a good effort to start on cleaning and sorting it out today. maybe tomorrow.

[Joe Dillard]

I cleaned up your use of certain language for you. Please keep things a bit more clean Mama. Thanks.

BTW: Hope you get it fixed soon.

[Joe Dillard]

Also, if you'll take the time to look at an older thread you posted - I mentioned a possible fix for you. You may want to take a look at that thread for info.

[vk0896]

Only way I know for a quick fix is the EFI, either Howell or Mopar...obviously, both are expensive, one way more than the other...had the same problem myself, everything present in my 89, but wouldn't run well, obviously would not smog, I installed the Mopar kit...

[kissfrk77]

to all who gave advice for my poor running YJ, thanks. I did the nutter bypass and it worked like a charm! i can recommend it to anyone who is having trouble with a "electronic carbureted" 4.2L. That ECU doesn't know whats good for itself. The whole motor runs better and it will idle in gear like a champ! For more info go tohttp://www.4x4wire.com/jeep/tech/electrical/jn-ignition99/
Can't wait to go get dirty again!

[ChiliPepperTJ]

Heres an option, go with the junkyard TBI setup I have on my 258 in my CJ. Its a chevy tbi system that the howell is based off of but it uses the electronic spark control where Howell is just fuel. I did it for under $550 and it runs great. I can go out and it fires up every time, no problems with stalling. I'm under 5000 miles a year so I'm emissions exempt but if the Howell kit is emissions legal this should be too. I can also hook up my laptop to the obd 1 and find out all the info about the engine, its pretty cool. Heres my writeup: http://www.bustedjeep.com/projects/junkyardtbi.asp
Kevin