Hey all, new to the XJ world (bought my first, a 99 in June), and this thing has me stumped.

It drove home just fine from about an hour away, but I decided to do a tune up just to make sure it'd pass emissions.
New cap, rotor, wires and plugs.
And since doing the job I've picked up an intermittent misfire.
The last time I worked on it in early July it was misfiring on the #2 cylinder.
At that point we swapped the old cap and rotor back on but still no change.
Yesterday when I first put a timing light to it, it was cylinders 3,4, and 6.
Timing light on the coil wire showed intermittent as well.
So I pulled the coil out and noticed some small cracks and decided to replace it.
After installing the coil it was misfiring on 4 and 5.

Hall sender maybe?? I pulled it out and it looked fine, cleaned it up but no change.
I did power wash the motor back in June, any chance I've damaged something or still have water trapped somewhere??

Any thoughts appreciated!

 

Welcome, Kabwena!

Check the wire that feeds into the coil. That connector can sometimes get loose. Also check your grounds. Flaky grounds can do amazing things.


When you say Hall sensor, do you mean the cam sensor in the distributor?

 

All right, I'll check the grounds and wire into the coil.

If a cam position sensor is in the distributor, then yes, that!

Thanks.

 

As mentioned, clean the main grounds.

Also not sure about the 99 but you said you pressure washed the engine, maybe water got into the TPS which are really susceptible to water cause them to act up. Just a thought. I know on the pre97 there is a test you can do with a multi meter. Maybe look into it for a 99.

 

Ok thanks I'll check that out!

Yesterday I checked and cleaned all the grounds, no change...
Still need to look at the wires to the coil as well.

 

BTW, in my sig, #1, there's a link to a thread with pictures of all your ground locations. Very useful.

 

Oh wow, thanks, I only knew of two grounds!
I'll be checking (taking apart and cleaning) the others soon.

 

All grounds check out ok.
Removed and cleaned them all.

No change...

 

As guessed, the simplest answer was the correct one.
Double checking the plugs and wires, found that the #4 wire was pulled out of the plug boot.
And the plug in #6 was arcing because the gap somehow wasn't what it should have been.

Running nice and smooth now... lol

Thanks for all the help!