[tony673]

I thought I would share an experience I had last evening in hopes that it may help someone else in the future. Here it goes......

Last night, I headed to the parking garage after a long shift at work. It was a cold 28 degrees. Before I jumped up into my Jeep, I reached in and started the engine. Once I hopped up, I realized that I had forgotten to unlock the console that had my CD player face plate in it. Without thinking, I immediately turned the engine off and unlocked the lid.

With faceplate in place I quickly moved to restart the engine to get some heat going. To my dismay it only cranked.....and cranked.....and cranked.... Puzzled, I turned off the key and let out a few curse words. I gave it a minute or so and cranked again. Nothing.

Back out of the Jeep I went and I moved to the front of the Heep to lift the hood. Immediately I smelled fuel. Instantly I thought that the motor was flooded. "Great", I thought. I had no tools, no flashlight, and no anything. What the heck was I going to do?? I couldn't pull the spark plugs to dry out the cylinders by hand. And at this temperature it would take hours for the gasoline to vaporize in the closed, cold cylinders!

I decided to head back into the hospital to gather some makeshift tools and to warm up. I came back out with a flashlight, some tape, hemostats, and a flathead screwdriver. I didn't know what the heck I would use them for, but they would be more use than nothing at all.

On the way back out I decided it might be a good idea to check the fuses in case my initial hypothesis was incorrect. Upon arrival back to the vehicle, I looked over all of the important fuses, inside and out. Everything checked out ok. At that moment, the idea of the century came to me.

Backing my original idea, I thought that if I pulled the fuel pump relay, then cranked the engine, it would dry out the cyclinders and burn off most of the fuel that was flooding them without adding any more.

I tried the idea and cranked until there was no more sputtering. I put the relay back in place and gave it a try. It fired right up! The ride home was flawless. I had never been happier to hear the clunk of my exhaust hitting the frame over bumps, or the feel of the freezing cold rush of air on my leg coming through a small srew hole in my firewall .

I know, I know. I'm an idiot for shutting the engine off after just starting it. The outcome was positive, though, and it was a lesson learned. Thanks for reading.

[bharris68]

Very clever - thanks for Posting that!

[NonRubicon]

Interesting solution to a flooded engine.

AFAIK, most (if not all) fuel injected engines have a "flood clear" mode that goes into effect when you floor the gas pedal and crank the engine. This shuts off the injectors until the excess fuel is cleared from the cylinders. I know that it's a feature on the Howell TBI kit, I'd be really surprised if the '07 JK with MPFI didn't have this feature.