hey guys, have been having trouble with my jeep starting recently. finally left me stranded at the grocery store so over the weekend i did some work on it. a friend of mine let me know my reverse lights were not working, smoking gun my neutral safety switch was on the fritz. rebuilt and cleaned it over the weekend and put it back together and all was well, so i thought. started it up and it was kinda sluggish starting up. drove it around the block and it did ok but im thinking i lost my 4th gear, i cant feel it shift past 3rd and my ave. mpg has dropped a few. what is going on with that.
when i got back from the test drive i shut it off and tried to restart it. nada. it would click at first but then it wouldnt do anything. tried to jump it. nada. tested the battery, it was good, but dead. charged it and swapped out my alternator while that was going. tried to start again, nada. so duh should have gone to starter first but no big deal( ps i had already cleaned the leads and everything). swapped the starter right quick with a fresh one and now she starts like a champ! but i still dont think it is shifting into 4th and i never had a problem like that before the NSS rebuild. any ideas or suggestions cause for a college kid an average of 10 mpg is not cutting it

1998 xj 4.0L sport 4 door/ 4 wheel
THANKS!!

 

Are your reverse light working now? Did you align the NSS correctly?

 

reverse lights are on. she only starts in P and N so im assuming i put it back on right. it lined up with the arm that extends from the tranny so i think i got it right. any obvious way to tell if i didnt?

 

it sounds like you got it right....Sometimes the NSS will have a line on it that should relatively line up with the shaft when it's in Neutral. I don't think the reverse lights would come on in the right gear if you had it wrong though. The shifting issue is probably unrelated to the NSS. Maybe a tranny solenoid.... just throwing that out there. Any bucking or lurching? Could be a clogged cat if so. Had a clogged cat on my car once and that thing ran soooo much better when I replaced it.

 

not sure what you mean by a clogged cat? but not the transmission shifts smoth, smooth when i put it into gear. the fluid looked like it could use a changing but that shouldnt effect the performance like that should it?

 

ok so update. the jeeper is good now. it was shifting into 4th its was to smooth to feel i guess cause when i was accelerating faster than normal i noticed the rpms dropped and felt it shift to 4th. as far as the mpg i must have been mistaken. i was doing a little more city driving than normal and when i got back on my regular driving patterns it went back to normal.

 

cat= catalytic converter

 

For your shifting issues, may not be the cure but its free to do.
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1015963

The first post has the directions, the last page has a pic of the cable.

 

EVERYONE should do this as a point of semi-regular maintenance