Help, my Jeep keeps cutting out and stalling on heavy washboard roads…

[Proud American]

Gentlemen,

I’m new to your forum and I was hoping for your suggestions to a problem I keep having with my TJ. I have 1997 Wrangler with a 4 cylinder engine and 125,000 miles on it. The Jeep is a second vehicle for me and runs perfect when I'm driving around town. However, when go camping I need to take the Jeep down an 8 mile washboard road. The road is not difficult to for a Jeep and most two wheel drive cars make it.

On the last two trips I’ll be driving down the washboard trail at various speeds (15-35 MPH) and all of sudden the Jeep will loss power and die. The radio will still be on but all gauges with go out. Once I feel the Jeep is dying (losing RPM’s) I’m sometimes able to shift into neutral and aggressively pump the gas gauge a couple of times to get my RPM’s up and get myself out of it.

Once the Jeep dies I'm usually able to start the vehicle up again. One time I couldn’t start it up again and tried it the next morning and it started up fine. When it wont start the motor cranks fine but it wont turn over. The faster I travel on the washboard the worst the problem gets and I’ll stall all of the time. The last trip I couldn’t the Jeep out of 1st gear! But, once on the highway I was fine at any speed.

I recently took the Jeep to my mechanic that specializes in electrical and they couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Probably because they couldn’t get it to stall in the city. They looked at it sparingly for the course of two week and drove it all around town without fail. This whole situation is a pain in my ass considering I only use the Jeep for camping. A couple of my colleagues think the problem might be the fuel pump after hearing “Once I feel the Jeep is dying I’m sometimes able to shift into neutral and pump the gas gauge a couple of times to get my RPMS up and get myself out of it.” At this stage I'm open for any suggestions I cant imagine I'm to only guy to have this problem.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions you might have.

Sincerely,

Proud American

 

[BaconYJ]

To me it sounds like you have sediment in your tank and it is clogging your fuel filter. The rumbling and bouncing around will dislodge it from the bottom of the tank and/or the filter itself, then it can pass through the fuel pump into the the fuel lines where the filter is.

Hope this helps.
Welcome to Jeepz!

Bacon

 

[xt master]

I agree sounds like a fuel pump problem.Try running the motor and have some one jump up and down on the rear bumper to see if it will cut out or not.

 

[Saddle Tramp]

My vote is it is a grounding issue, maybe at the pump but maybe not.

 

[SteelHeadz]

I would agree with the fuel pump thoery IF the gauges were not affected when this dying issue occurs. I'm leaning towards an electrical harness or a wire that's shorting to ground when running the Jeep on a rough road. Did they check the 02 sensor wires?. Check that for chaffing, or burnt insulations. At idle, wiggle the wiring harness that is possibly making intermittent contact with the frame or the body and see if the engine sputters and dies.

 

[Keith__C]

It could be a slightly loose ground, however I am going to say take a look at your Fuel pump relay--it might either be loose in the socket or the electromagnet inside might be weak so that all the jarring will cause it to break free and kill your fuel pump.

 

[kingaircj]

I would also check the wiring on the Crack postion senser CPS. If that bad boy is becomes disconneted the engine would die. Start the jeep up got from top to bottom, front to back shaking any wires you see.

 

[Vlad]

I had a similar issue with my 97 tj, 4 cyl. When you would hit a hard bump mine would die, it may start after a minute, a couple of times it would take it several minutes to restart. I finally got lucky and it got worse, my problem turned out to be a loose plug in the harness bank above the drivers left foot, under the dash. I wiggled the plugs with it running and when I wiggled the right one it died. I unplugged it and sprayed everything down with electrical cleaner and plugged everything back in ensuring both clips on the plug engaged. Haven't had any trouble since.