Hey guys I recently bought a 1997 cherokee 4x4 and have been finding a few bugs and repairing them I go along. My jeep is hard to start, takes a few minutes of turning the engine over for it to start, but engine runs strong once started. I have seen many posts about the neutral safety switch causing this issue so it is something that I will be looking into because the shift linkage cable also needs adjusted. My main concern is the trans teens to shift erratically or irregularly at times. It usually will shift fine from 1st and 2nd gear but sometimes in 3Rd and 4 th it will pull then slip like it kicks itself into neutral. Can usually shift it manually to limp it home but I have only shifted 1st through 3rd, haven't tried putting it back in drive. When this started I suspected the trans was going bad but there are no signs of wear such as shavings or burnt fluid and I was assured w when I bought my xj that the trans was just replaced and had low mileage. I noticed when this occurs it causes the check engine light to come on so I had it diagnosed and if is throwing a tcm code, I believe p0705 or p0700 to be exact. My question is could the nss cause this? Would the bogus soft linkage alignment explain all this? Is there a way to bypass the tcm so I can see if that's all that is causing this issue?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated, many thanks,
Nate

 

I would definitely look at the NSS. They have a tendency to get gummed up and out of adjustment. I was having some shifting problems when I first got my jeep. Cleaning and adjusting the NSS helped get rid of the CEL and shifting issues I was having. It only took about an hour to an hour and a half to remove clean regrease, reassemble and install the switch. there are a ton of write ups on the subject so you should not have any problems finding the info that you need

Here is one of the sites that I used for mine http://jeep-xj.info/HowtoNSSrebuild.htm

 

Awesome! I will definitely give that a try this weekend! Thanks for the info and I'll be sure to post and let you know if it took care of the problem.