Jeep Dies Moving Forward

DonaldeWalker3

New Member
Joined
Sep 4, 2020
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10
Location
North Idaho
I have a very perplexing problem that I can't seem to hunt down. It started last night when I left to go to the store. I backed out the garage, and and as soon as I rolled forward, it died. Restarts just fine and will run in reverse, but not in gear. I originally thought it was fuel, so I tested that seen here:


What’s even weirder is I put it on jack stands and put it in gear and it ran fine. It’s literally just then motion of going forward…

it’s not stalling under load. If I leave it in first and hold the brake to let it load up, it won’t die. It’s as soon as it physically rolls forward.

I thought maybe it was the CPS, so I threw my spare in and it did the same thing, so I put the old one back in and tried this:


You can hear it die as soon as it shifts forward. Ignore the fan as it continues to run since the key is on.

Any takers!?
 
That is a weird one. You mentioned that the fan continues to run so I'm assuming you have an aftermarket electric fan? Anything else aftermarket on that rig? I'm only asking because a little while back we were helping a guy solve a weird fuel issue only to find out after like 3 days of replies that he had a fuel cell / return system set up instead of the factory stuff.

This may or may not be relevant, but a few years ago I had a problem where my old Mercury would die only when I turned right. It drove me nuts for quite a while. Not even sharp turns - I'd make an easy right hander & the engine would die, then crank right back up once I was going straight.

I eventually narrowed it down to a bad wire on the distributor pick up. The wire had a pretty wicked kink in it coming out of the distributor, and if I poked it gently with my finger from one direction the distributor would lose spark.
 
As far as electrical goes, I only have a fan, winch, and a couple lights. but those have been on there for a long time.
I did have some success wiggling wire looms near the rear of the valve cover, and that seemed to have made it go away for now. I would hardly call it a fix, as I didn't actually mend anything. I inspected the loom, and it looks to be crack free :C
 
I'm happy to inform whoever was wondering that I did get it fixed. I was able to trace some wiring that had some insulation rub off and was contacting the front driveshaft. This is why I was able to run it on jack stands in the rear without issue. As soon as the front driveshaft spun, it would ground out and die.
 
I'm happy to inform whoever was wondering that I did get it fixed. I was able to trace some wiring that had some insulation rub off and was contacting the front driveshaft. This is why I was able to run it on jack stands in the rear without issue. As soon as the front driveshaft spun, it would ground out and die.
Posts like these are nearly impossible to answer as it could be something like you had...but who the fuck would think of that on a forum.
Now that it's documented someone can reference should they have a similar issue.

Good job finding it.

Go wheeling brotha!!👍👊👍
 
Posts like these are nearly impossible to answer as it could be something like you had...but who the fuck would think of that on a forum.
Now that it's documented someone can reference should they have a similar issue.

Good job finding it.

Go wheeling brotha!!👍👊👍
Thanks man! I hope I can be of help to anyone that happens to have this problem!
 
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