[steveadam87]

So I was on an eight hour road trip and my car lost power with no throttle response and then died while I coasted to the side of the highway. I got it towed back to a friends house and the tow truck driver said that the distributor cap seized up inside and then twisted itself, shutting down the engine. Then he said that it had to be replaced and reprogrammed before the car would run right again. This doesn't sound right to me since I thought you could just pull it out and put in a new one, but it is one of the newer kind, the distributor-less ignition system, in an '01 wrangler sahara 6cl. I would rather just buy it and put it in myself, has anyone had this problem or replaced their's before?

[steveadam87]

I did some research and the timing sensor that goes into the engine next to the ignition coil bar is what seems to be broken. The wiring plug that runs into it should be lined up parallel to the engine block facing the rear and now it is torqued clockwise so that it is touching the block. You can tell where it should be lined up and there are metal shavings were it is mounted to the block. The sensor should be what determines the firing sequence and I'm betting that is why the engine turns over but doesn't fire. Has anyone heard of or seen this. I'm planning on taking it out to look at it tomorrow.

[veritas4156]

Hey its Frank from Advance in Binghamton. The name of the sensor is the camshaft position sensor. I'm not sure what the part that it attaches to is because my jeep is older but you may have some luck if you post in the TJ section. Lemme know how it turns out. If you do need a replacement cam sensor it was around $58 at the store but you should be able to get away with not replacing it. The thing that i thought of right after you left is that if the cam got stuck because of that gear sticking you might need a new cam, cam gear(that tower thing that the cam sensor attaches to) and possibly a new timing chain/timing gears. Hopefully not but if that gear sheared because it got stuck then that sounds like everything else would be screwed too.

[steveadam87]

Frank,
I'm thinking that your worst case scenario is what happened, the gear shearing and getting stuck, because otherwise why would the whole setup turn 90 degrees and only stop because it hit the block. I tried turning the sensor cap by hand and it just won't budge. Anyway, I'm gonna just take it apart until i figure it out starting tomorrow morning. Thanks for the help I'll let you know what happens.

[veritas4156]

hey I dont know how much you know about taking these apart but I'm taking my 4.0L apart tomorrow morning to redo the base timing. If you want stop by, just PM me tonight and give me a number to call you at and i'll give you a call.