94 gcl sputtering issue

[jeffbeck]

This just started happening a few months ago. The truck drives like it's got bad gas or water in the line. It happens at any speed whether I'm idle at a stop or doing 80, it's as if somebody's turning the fuel injection on and off. Spark plugs still look new, but I get the check engine light on from time to time which I had checked by pep boys, and they told me it's the 02 sensor.
I'm no mechanic, but I doubt the 02 sensor would be causing this problem.
Anybody have any thoughts?

[fredjacksonsan]

Could be the crankshaft position sensor. Do a search here and in the Cherokee forums.

[jeffbeck]

any way to verify that it's the crank sensor if it's not comming up as an error code?

[fredjacksonsan]

Not that I know of, but I'm not one of the good electronics guys. You've got a distributor on the '94, right? How are your cap, rotor and wires? That could cause an issue also and is worth a check.

[jeffbeck]

I don't know the first thing about checking the rotor or distributer, do you mean the wires going to the spark plugs?

[fredjacksonsan]

Yes, that's part of it. If you trace the plug wires (which may themselves be part of the problem) back from the plugs, they should all go to a common point. This point is the distributor cap. Inside the distributor cap is the rotor, which turns and "distributes" spark to the cylinders in turn. When you take the cap off, look at the contacts inside. They're probably very dirty and kind of "fuzzy" from all the electrical contact. Replacements should be on the order of $20 or less, and you can get a good set of plug wires for a little more.

Make sure that when you are changing them, to do them one wire at a time so as not to get them mixed up.

Of course this might not be your problem, but this could be contributing factors, since you're not getting any codes.