jeeper1195

Hello I'm new on here and I've become stumped on this problem and I was hoping someone on here could help.

Some background: 98 4.0 cherokee automatic 199K on body, the guy I bought it from said it had an engine and trans from a junk yard, having the same problem as others on here with the random stalling at a stop and not restarting (replaced the crank position sensor), throwing codes for O2 sensors up and down stream (already replaced them), and several other sensor codes for 'high voltage' , guages die randomly mostly fuel guage, runs excellent then at times it sputters..

now I've been driving it fine with all of these problems, then after 5 consecutive nights of wheeling, it was starting harder and harder. I stopped to get gas and put some lucus deep clean in, pulled off to the side and shut it off, and when I came back out i turned the key and nothing.. no clicking no cranking at all. the only thing i can hear is the relay clicking behind the glove box.

got a tow home and figured it was the starter from all the deep water and mud over that long week of wheeling. i replaced that and still nothing. i checked the ground on the starter housing, power on the lead wire, and the signal wire has power when you turn the key.

i turned the crank pulley bolt with a breaker bar and it spins freely. if the neutral safety switch was bad, would it still feed the signal to the starter? also my stock reverse lights work rarely..


long post i know, but i wanted to get as much info out there as i could so if anyone can help me out, i would greatly appreciate it!

jeeper1195

my airbag light is on also..

anyone have any ideas what else to check?

ET JEEP

Have your battery load tested to see if it is good. Check your battery cables and makes sure they a good, clean and tight at the batttery, ground and starter.

If you are getting battery voltage at the solenoid terminal, signal wire, your starting circuit is working properly. With a bad NSS you would not get power to the signal wire.

Since you replaced the starter, the start circuit is good and the engine turns freely, I would look at the battery and cables. You could disconnect the battery cable at the starter and use a jumper cable from the battery to starter to see if it cranks that way or makes an attempt to start. Use a heavy duty jumper cable as the starter draws a good amount of battery power. Also jumping the starter with the existing cable will tell you something.

freegdr

do the head lights turn on

jeeper1195

thanks for the replies guys. today was my day off so i had some time to mess with it..

I finally got it to start, dont know why but heres what i found out. i pulled out my multi meter to check all the wires at the starter again because i couldn't even jump the terminals.. everything checked out, block ground reading 12.3 volts.. but with the key in the run position, the block only read 4.2 volts.. so i took a jumper cable from the battery and clamped to the starter case and it fired right up.

bought a $6 battery wire and grounded the block directly to the battery. problem solved.

hope this can help someone else. also if anyone can shed some light on why the voltage would drop on the block when the key was on, i would appreciate understanding this mysterious xj a little more.

thank you and happy jeeping