Automotive Forums

Hello guys, I'll first start out by saying that I'm new here. Hope to get a couple questions answered.

Here's my story:
I'm from Sandpoint Idaho and we have a river here that we all like to take our trucks down and it usually turns out bad due to the sand. I took my '89 Toyota PU down it yesterday and got stuck but didn't really have many issues, just winched out and since it was lifted 9" w/ 35" swampers (not good for sand) nothing really got wet.

Well, anyways today I decided to take my '98 Cherokee (police edition/stock) to the river w/ my roommate who has a CJ. We were just going to swim and that's it... well, we couldn't help but try and go down the river a ways. We crossed back and fourth sandbar to sandbar until it started getting a little tricky so we decided to turn back. that's when my friend w/ his CJ got stuck....
sorry for the bad picture, crappy camera phone.

so we left his while we had some people to come help along the way. My XJ was having a hard time on the sand and I had to go back upstream. I set out heading back and made it ten feet from the shore when I dug myself down and found a soft deep spot. Luckily it was here rather then ten feet back where the water was up to my headlights. anyways here is a pic....

I opened the doors to water rushing in which soon filled the inside of my jeep up to the seats. It sat here for a good 1-2 hours while we had my other Roommate come w/ his land cruiser to pull me out. He pulled me out and when I got to shore opened the doors to let all the water out and then parked on an incline to let the water out. I'll just say now, 8 hours later and it's still dripping. After I got out we went and got the CJ out which wasn't hard at all, it back'd right out w/ us pushing while my friend cranked the engine over (it wouldn't start due to the Chevy engine being submerged on the bottom half, the clutch wouldn't engage).

When going to leave the Jeep started acting really crappy, sounding like it wasn't running on all cylinders and was miss firing a little. It could barely get up to highway speed and the check engine light was flashing the whole way back to my house. I would go on for a while then shut off for a little while.

It's now back to my house and I replaced the Distributor cap and the wires and put that "heat" water evaporator stuff in the gas tank.

My question is what else should be done on my Jeep to make sure it stays in running condition after being in the water. It's running a little better now but still not as good as it did earlier. I'm going to replace the airfilter tomorrow because the current one is a little damp. I have rubber floors in the Jeep so Luckily I wont have to deal w/ wet carpets. Just a little sand to vacuumn up.

I appreciate any suggestions and help on this subject and would like to say thanks ahead of time for any advice (besides stay away from rivers). Thanks.  

i would swing it by your local auto zone or advanced auto and have them do a code scan to see what was fumbling up on you the ECM should have stored the codes and this will give you an idea of where the problem happened most likly some wires got wet but the codes will give you an area to look in where you might want to check the wireing and use some looms or sealant to protect against water