Hi there, been lurking around the forum for a good number of years. Have had loads of help by the collected knowledge but this time I can't seem to find what I need to fix an issue.

Jeep is an 96 XJ 4.0 AW4 which has been acting up with rough idle, stuttering when accelerating and bad gas mileage.

Tracked the issue to the TPS whick gives a constant 4.74 Volts when probing the signal wire (2). Supply current (1) and ground (3) wires checks out ok. Signal wire reading isn't affected by throttle modulation as it's supposed to.

If I unplug the sensor and take a reading of pin 2 on the harness connector I get 5.2 Volts. Needless to say it's supposed to be zero and by coincident this is the same voltage as pin 1. Hence I gathered there was a short somewhere.Trouble is I can't seem to find it...

Reading the forums there are quite a few threads on mystery TPS issues which traces back to the clockspring which shares a ground with the TPS. A bad clockspring seems to mess with the PCM so that it sends out current through the signal wire.

My issue now is that some threads suggest that you can diagnose this problem by unhooking the Clockspring while some say the only way to know if it's the cause is to replace it. I tried unhooking it but still had the same readings at the TPS.

Have anyone here had luck diagnosing the problem by unhooking the clockspring? Or is a replacement clockspring the only way to know for sure?

Any help is greatly appreciated!