You must have gumby arms. Long, skinny and ultra flexible. Those with ham sized proportions find it a little tougher going in those tight places.

 

Not a tight place at all if you jack the body up. I'm 6'5" 280 so everything is a tight place.

 

Laminack is right, I owe Mr. Bond a beer too... Actually several beers...

I joined to say thanks to Mike662 and of course, Bond. As you may have guessed, I have a 02 Grand Cherokee with 172K (and a rebuilt tranny - sure wish I had changed the CPS when the tranny was out!!)

And yes, this is the wrong forum to post for a Grand, but this is where Google takes you...

The Grand's have tighter clearances between the firewall and the bellhousing. You can reach your hand in from the top, but only to replace the sensor. There is not enough clearance to wrench from the top. I disconnected the shift linkage to ease access, but using various combinations of wobble and universal joints and up to 3' of extension, I was not able to get a good purchase on the bolt from the bottom. Removing the grommet for the 4WD transfer case and accessing from the drivers side passenger compartment is the way to go. Mike 662 has good pics of this.

When removing and installing, to capture the bolt, I used a long reach magnet on the outside of the socket (I will buy magnetic inserts...) When installing, I used an extra long reach needle nose (Harbor Freight) to position the wire shield, etc. I did tie a string to the end of the connector when removing and this made things a lot easier when reconnecting. The wires from the connector are approx 12 - 15" long, have to pass over the top of the bell housing, and there is not much slack to play with. On the Grand, the connector is on the passenger side rear a few inches below the top of the block. Removing the air box on top of the throttle body affords enough room to snake your arm between the block and the firewall to position the new sensor.

Nedbee's issue with removing the air register is that the phillips head bolt is located behind the register and must be accessed from the bottom. I used an inspection mirror, a phillips head socket, u-joint, a few inches of extension, and a wobble adapter (in that order) on a 1/4 drive ratchet.

Aside from an unnaturally long learning curve attempting to access the the CPS bolt, the only other issue I had was with the shield for the CPS harness wires. I believe it would have put too much pressure on the wires where they exit the CPS. I think the replacement, factory, CPS had the wires exiting straight out of the back of the CPS and the original had the wires exiting more at a 90 deg angle. I ended up positioning the shield out of the way and not protecting the harness. It's been fine for the past month.

Again, thanks to everyone that contributed to this thread. It helped tremendously!

Cheers.

 

where you able to do this with a 99xj

 

Help!
My daughter's 2001 Grand Cherokee Laredo Jeep was having intermittent stalling problems. It finally got to where it wouldn't run for more than a few minutes.
I replaced both the crankshaft position sensor and the camshaft position sensor (just the top sensor), and now it won't start at all.

I have double checked to make sure all connections are tight and that the crankshaft position sensor is fully seated.

Help!

It was a pain to get the sensor routed to the bellhousing, but I had it in a plastic baggie until I inserted it into the hole....could dirt on it be the problem?

I used Mopar parts, the exact part numbers recommended by the dealer.

I have swapped the camshaft sensor back to the old one and no luck. My next thought is to swap the crankshaft sensor back, but at $7 per spacer, I don't want to do that too many times!

Help!

Car was throwing P0320 code prior to any work.

Thanks!

 

wow, great info, im tempted to go look!!

 

Much thanks to the post below on how to access the CPS from inside the cab, through access plate on floor board.

I did mine yesterday, but wanted to share a few extra pieces of advice to make this headache of a job somewhat easier.

I ended up cutting/enlarging the access hole with a Dremel cutting tool. Trust me, the hole provided when removing the access plate is no where near large enough. You can get the old sensor out, but not the new one in. Simply cut a about an inch out to the left enlarging existing hole (your access plate will still reinstall as it was).

I scrapped the small metal washer/bracket that was installed on the old sensor covering the top of the inlet wire. It would have been a pain to get back on and did not see any real benefit of havung it.

You will want to take some string or wire and tie it to the end of the plug of new sensor and fish it through the access and around the bell housing to route it to where the connection is first (you cannot see/access the space on top of bellhousing to grab the wire).

After unstalling new sensor I covered the cut area in the floorboard with some gorilla tape (does the job).

Finally, after starting back up you will hear a ticking sound coming from inside the bellhousing. This is normal and will go away. Your new sensor has on it a piece of felt on the tip (about 0.030 inch thick) that will shear off by the flywheel. I believe its there to protect the sensor during installation (dont remove it).

Hope this info helps supplement the instructions provided earlier. Thanks again for the fanatastic writeup!

-Chris

 

Keep in mind XJ owners. The method described in this thread of accessing CPS through inside of cab is for the Grand Cherokee WJ only. The interior access hole is not on XJ models.

 

Changed my crank sensor because of this post. Thank you very much sir!! I owe you a beer or two.

 

i dropped something in the bell housing and i dont know what to do. help

 

One of the two CPS bolts by any chance?
I have read that guys were able to remove the flywheel cover, the small one, and fish it out from there.

 

Or take the starter out.

 

One of those radio antenna looking probes with a good magnet on the end is a good tool to have for this kind of thing, I know first hand.

They were going to send me to blow up the Death Star because I can drop a half inch nut through a quarter inch hole and lodge it inside the frame rail, but I had the flu, so Luke went instead.

 

Does this work for The 80s models as well???

 

I've read a lot about what a pita this is - after I'd done mine, so I didn't know, & just got on with it. Mind you, I had my parts XJ to practise on & the head was already off, so guess that made it a bit easier, not that I remember any particular difficulties.