88' some questions

Ok my firend just bought a 88 cherokee inline 6. Well the whole motor is covered in oil very very badly worst i ever seen lmao so we replaced the valve cover gasket since that was leaking bad but main quetions are well under the valve cover smokes like hell i mean real bad and the intake tube and box and air filter are caked in oil i dont know how its running lol well i cleaned the intake box replaced the filter for him and the intake tube getting all the oil out well i started it with whole intake tube box cleaner off and sprayed throttle body cleaner hoping to get the oil out of the manifold got some out runns little bit better and when it ya floor it backfires then goes missing like hell jeepz.com says you cant adjust the timeing plus it take it a few secs to even start im just wondering what i can do to fix these problems like the missing and the smoke in the valve cover i was thinking the timeing is very retadred and mabey some vapor lock could be doing this but i only know chevys lmao not sure about jeeps lol if someone could point me the right way to go about this would help very much also can you set timeing useing a computer aka snapon reporgraming the pcm in sorry i seem so dumb twards this lol i drive a 89 caprice tbi lol not much more than carb lmao thanx all in advance for your help hes a real great friend with a very young kid im just trying to help him get a good relible car for him and his family :) thanx again

When I got my 88 Cherokee 6 months ago the airbox and filter were also soaked in oil. The parts guy at Jeep told me it was a common problem and the grommet or vacuum tube at the rear of the valve cover was clogged. This is where the oil vapor should be purged out the engine and since it wasn't, I was seeing blow-by and the oil vapor was beening pushed out wherever it could go.
I bought the kit for I think $17 and 90 percent of my oil leaks went away. My rear main still leaks some, but I haven't had a chance to tackle that yet. The part number is 04762592 and the kit consists of the grommet and tube. It takes 5 minutes to change.

OK. First suggestion, please try using some punctuation. It's extemely difficult to read what you say when it's one huge run-on sentence.

Next, as Scrap_Iron says, there is a breather that connects from the back of the valve cover to the front of the intake manifold. It has a small metered opening in it (at the valve cover end). Make sure it's clear.

You can't adjust the timing as it's controlled by the computer. But you can check the rotor, cap, plug wires and spark plugs. Also, there are a number of sensors that contributes to the fuel mixture and timing. If you can troubleshoot, you can test them using the info here:
http://www.lunghd.com/Tech_Articles/Engine/Basic_Sensors_Diagnostics.htm

Good Luck

i changed mine and everything worked good no more leaks now i have to fix every thing else.

I had a problem in my '88 Cherokee where oil was forced up into the distributor from high crankcase pressure due to clogged vacuum (PCV) lines. It ran bad, backfiring and such because the oil in the distributor shorted out the stator at the bottom of the it. I corrected the vacuum problem and it was cheaper and easier to replace the distributor than the stator. It runs fine now.