alright boys, so this past weds, i went for a little drive a trail around the corner from my house after some rains to see what all its done to the trail. very muddy and slippery as i am in the E. coast of the US. but there is this one rut that is usally pretty decently filled with water/mud. i hit the pretty hard on the way in, in 1st gear. and on the way out about the same speed in 2nd gear. but in the middle of it my jeep stalls and dies. it will crank just wont turn over to get the engine going. after about 30min of letting the engine cool down and the smoke going away, i try again and get a low humming sound as if theengine isn't fully compressing or something. but when i put it in first gear to try and get it to go it would stall <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />. i've attriuted all of this to water while not much water could have gotten in, if any at all. a friend that pulled me home said thats what his charokee sounds like when he gets some water in the egine.
so i parked infront of my house letting it sit in the cold weather. jumped it yesterday and got the same symptoms. bt cranked it today and it ran almost normally full compression an all. ONLY i noticed my catlytic convter was red hot after letting the engine run and my friend said that she saw flames comming out of my tail put while i was letting it run :? any clues? and when i put it into gear after about a good 5min of runnin it stalled, mind you this is from full compression in first gear letting out and pushing on gas to move the car.

You very well might have gotten some water up in the engine, in the cat converter is an obvious one. I had a lot of trouble with my converter before hollowing it out many years ago, but that was because it was clogged with goo, not due to water, but she also gave me hell when it was clogged, as if she was full of water. Any time you bog out in water, it isn't very wise to try to crank and crank with the chance of ruining your engine or other components. Not saying that you did have water up in your engine, but if I were stalled out in a puddle that came up to the exhaust, I would make sure not to crank the engine, get out of the water, let her dry out, making sure to check the traditional stuff like your dist. cap, air cleaner assy, exhaust and electrical system that is critical to running the engine. After all these things are surely not going to pose an issue with the engine running, then try to start her up again. This is a common sight along beaches with sound or back water access. Many people get a little carried away and soak everything. Snorkle or not, there are other things to get ruined due to getting stuff wet. In your case, the flaming tail pipe is kind of cool, perhaps if you were driving a `57 chevy or something of the sort.... even a hot rod Jeep or something, but not a mid-90's Jeep.... This could have been a result of your constant cranking and excess fuel built up, faulty plugs/dist cap or timing issues. All these could be the issue with the stalling with even just a little pressure caused by letting off the clutch in first gear. The Cat converter is also a likely cause for this as well. The red hot converter, same story.

I would check your wiring, to include ignition wires, then your cap and dist. itself, then the intake, then crawl up under and try to lift up on the converter, then muffler, if there seems to be excess weight, there might be a bunch of water in them, you can test the flow by disconnecting just forward of the converter, I believe your's has a 3 or 4-bolt connect there and try to run it that way. Just know that this will be quite loud and you don't want anyone too close to it. If you suddenly have all the power in the world with everything else doing okay after troubleshooting, then your converter is most likely due to be replaced.

Good luck with this and I look forward to hearing about what is going on!

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

Happy Jeeping!

well i went out and played with it today and got i to move! but when i hit the gas it sounded like it wasn't getting enough fuel in the lowend? MAYBE spark plugs? and once i killed it, it wouldnt start up again no clue why? and it was looking a watery fluid but with black specs or solid black, any clue as to what this is? hell who knows could be my paint just runing off i guess

this happens alot on my wrangler. water is getting in the cap and rotor. pull the cap off and if it looks just wet and muddy hose it down with some WD40 (WD stands for Water Displacing) sometimes the water and spark will actually fry the insides makeing cap reaplcement nessacery. the cat was glowing because the jeep would miss send lots of fuel down and the cat would convert it, cat's just burn what isn't burnt already. the black water stuff was it spewin rich soot and a bit of water.

the first time this happened to me i was out in the river bed hitting all the biggest puddles i could with my brother. it started sputturning, so we though maybe the comp was wet or somthing so we just left in 4 lo and sputtered most the way out. near the exit we saw (what we thought) was a cop car so i threw it in revers and gave it some gas. instead of this actually reversing our course it just killed the engine, right in plain sight of this cop. So now we are sitting there dead in the water and this guys gets out his car and start walking twards us. my brother and i panicked and just cept cranking the motor until th guy got there. it turns out that he had a conversion civy crown vic. and was coming out to see if we needed some help <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/scared.gif" alt="" /> with his help we pushed it to the streat and used his car to jump it. it fired black soot the whole way home.

im sorry sunder im a little hazy today but by cap you mean distributer cap? and rotar has left my mind <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> and should i not think anything of the soot?

Forget the soot!! Problem lies elsewhere. Start with taking the cap off and wipeing it out good and dry! The rotor is the thing inside of the cap that goes round and round! Dry it good too.
Big JIm <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" />

Dude,

The distributor "cap", being the thing with wires (7 for a 6 cylinder, 5 for a 4 cylinder), is what distributes a blast of electricity from the ignition coil to the spark plugs at just the right time to the right spark plug so that the spark plug "sparks" at just the right moment. If water, goo, sludge, muck or dirt is interfering with the "rotor" (the thing that is inside the distributor cap that, like Big Jim mentioned, goes round and round in a "rotary" fashion) with constant connection with the center pin that comes from the ignition coil, the center and additional wire if you were wondering from above... It spins around; typically arcing rather than making contact which makes it possible for it to spin around and last so long because there is never any friction. If any of the inhibitors mentioned earlier happen to "foul" this connection with the center pin, or between the rotor tip and the pins that are connected to the spark plug pins, then there is a really good chance that no electricity or not enough is making it from the ignition coil, through the "coil wire" through the cap, out to the pins that go out to and then through the spark plug wires and eventually down to the spark plugs.... where they "spark" inside the individual cylinders at just the right time. Without getting too technical, there is a firing order that determines the "just the right time" thing. Anyway, ensure that the cap and rotor are clean without any debris to include even a little moisture. Then check to make sure that all of your "wires" are firmly seated on the spark plugs, on the cap, and on the ignition coil. Once this is done, attempt to start your Jeep, pictures of Jeeps are available on line by doing a search on Google for "Jeep" or "Jeeps".... Once this is done, disregard any soot or goo coming from the exhaust, just check for performance increase to "normal" as before your endeavor, and the absence of "glowing" cat converter.

Any questions, feel free to post and also let us know what you find after all this....

We are here to help in any way that we can, It's a Jeep thing!

Happy Jeeping!

thnx nc yea i understood what had to be done after my nap and looked at the jeep, i was really hazy hadnt slept for 2 days but iam better now going to work on it tom after i leave my country house. but i do enjoy your new presence, btw im in NC, we should meet in wheel sometime. maybe plan a trip to uhwarie?

I am in GA, There are a couple places that I visit when I go north, Long Beach (now just "part of" Oak Island), the entire Outer Banks, Fort Fisher, sometimes Statesville, and thats about it. It is normally a I20 and I95 to pass through. Perhaps this spring some time you could meet me out on the OBX and we can do the beach buggy thing.

Good luck and still, please keep us informed as to your findings.

yes well things got a little hectic today and between that and changing my oil never got around to it, soits tomm. weds mourn of course