1996 Jeep Cherokee Set Timing After Head Gasket Replacement

My old 96 Jeep Cherokee is driving me crazy. I’ve got the four liter six cylinder engine and the head gasket blew. So I had a local guy put a new head gasket on, and now it won’t start. He can’t figure out what’s wrong. Do you have any suggestions?”

Let’s hope it’s a little thing. I assume the engine has been put back together correctly (and that the head gasket wasn’t put in upside down or anything crazy like that.) If that part was done correctly, a common problem is aligning the distributor correctly when putting the engine back together. Those Jeeps are REALLY particular about having the timing exactly right. So here’s an old trick: drill a small hole in the plastic distributor cap by the number one distributor cap position. Then with the engine at top dead center, the number one distributor electrode should line up with the trailing edge of the ignition rotor (and NOT the leading edge of the rotor.) I’ve seen this stump a lot of guys in the past, it’s a pretty simple fix. Then you just go and buy a new distributor cap, they don’t cost much on that Jeep.