AFARR

1999 XJ, 4.0, auto trans.

My Younger daughter's car. Worked great. Starts right up.

Now she's watching a friends dogs, goes out in the AM (yesterday) to start the car in their garage, and it's completely dead. No trouble whatsoever the night before. Now no lights, no clicking, nothing.

Tries to jump it, but the jumper cables got hot (hooked up correctly, she double checked).

I'm out of town, so I told her to pull the battery from the Wrangler at home, put it in the Cherokee and see what happens. She wound up pulling the Cherokee battery out, swapping it for a new 'Blem' from the interstate distributor near us.

Now it cranks great (new/fully charged battery), but no start. Disconnected the battery yesterday evening to be sure there's not a short in the car draining the battery. Fuel pump does whir once you first turn the key.

I'm out of town, so I can't look at it. She took a Multi-meter with her to do some testing. Ordered a new Crank Position Sensor (Mopar) as I know that's a common problem that should be here today.

Other than that, what are the possible sources for a Crank/No Start problem? Anything she can look at easily? Worst case, she calls AAA and gets it towed home, but it would be nice to get it out of their garage before they get home Friday.

Thanks!


She's a bit limited (has to bring the tools from home with her to work on it, as the friends don't have much by way of car repair stuff), but can do some simple car repair stuff herself.

Frank4784

I just had this same thing happen to me for a second time. Did u find a fix?

bpm123

Try neutral safety switch ... super common especially if you get nothing when turning the key. One way to test is to put the car in reverse and see if the reverse lights go on. If not then the shifting is off and need to adjust the neutral safety switch. Try starting in neutral.

Frank4784

The reverse lights do come on what does that mean

Roler

So you went from a no crank-no start to a crank- no start after a new battery. Thats already better.

If it cranks but not starts, it's not likely the NSS . It needs a signal from the NSS in order to start. A faulty NSS however can do weird stuff like intermittent starting. I bypassed mine for that reason until I get to it on the to-do list

A carked CPS (even more common) would give you a crank-no start scenario.

There are a few scenarios possible and I'm not sure how much time she has to check those (checking for fuel and checking spark) so one quick thing to try in the meantime is : remove starter relay, turn key to the ON position, and jump terminal (the 'female' socket) for pin 87 and 30 and see if it cranks

Let me check an old post of myself to double check this

Edit: yep pin 30 and 87

bpm123

bpm123

It is probably not the NSS, usually the shifting is off and therefore when you put it in reverse the reverse ligths dont come on. It is an idicator versus a causal relationship.