Xk neutral safety switch

I need some help, I'm out in front of the infamous red XJ, and it's giving me fits. The neutral safety switch appears to be on the fritz somehow. A few months ago I found it loose, and adjusted it and tight and i I need some help, I'm out in front of the infamous red XJ, and it's giving me fits. The neutral safety switch appears to be on the fritz somehow. A few months ago I found it loose, and adjusted it and tightened it because she was complaining that every once in a while it did not start unless he wiggled the shifter and waited sometime. Recently that complaint has come back, so I assumed I had not tightened the hold down bolt enough.

So here I am, and the bolt is tight, but I figured I'd better adjust the switch anyway. Well apparently this vehicle does not have reverse lights, so that method is out. I keep getting it adjusted so that it starts once but is soon as you take it out of park and put it back in it no longer starts.

Is there something on your mode of the neutral safety switch which would allow it to only work once and then somehow lose its adjustment once you went through the gears?

If anyone has specific knowledge of this failure mode, please text or call 864 five one seven 4518 because I'm stuck in her driveway

Update: perhaps this is not the neutral safety switch after all, I bypassed it with a paperclip at the wiring harness. With it bypassed or not bypassed I can start repeatedly in park. Over and over again at happily starts in park. However if I change the gear shift to any other position and then back again, it's a no start. Literally doing nothing and just waiting seems to make him happy.

I think you're crossing the wrong wires or something if it behaves like that with the switch bypassed.

http://go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoNSSrebuild.htm

OK, I'm officially calling off the emergency. Don't have to call tonight, as I'm leaving this where I found it. I still would appreciate a response though, because I am so confused.

For the record in the past few years on this jeep we have changed the cam shaft sensor, the crankshaft sensor, the battery, the starter, the radiator, and several other cooling system related parts which are not really relevant right now. This is the strangest failure mode I've seen, and that even jumping the neutral safety switch doesn't seem to make it behave, unless my paper clip is less effective at jumping than I thought.

I'm having a very similar problem with a friend's PT Cruiser. In her case, the shift selector cable seized up, so I had to swap that as well as the shifter ass'y since she broke that when the cable seized. After re-assembly, it would always start in neutral and it would often start in park, but not always. Couple things:

Check that the cable is firmly clipped in to the holder bracket on the transmission? That wasn't the problem on the PT, but it's something to check.

I don't know how they did it on the XJ, but the Transmission Range Sensor on other Mopar autos is often found inside the transmission itself on top of the valve body. Whoops. My next step on the PT is going to be to soak the adjuster in penetrating oil to make sure it's as freed up as it can get and then disconnect the adjuster bolt at the shifter. Then I'm going to find something to apply maximum pressure to the selector on the transmission to push it as far forward as it will go while I re-attach the adjuster. If that doesn't work, then I'm going to do the reverse -- adjusting the cable so that "park" puts the selector lever on the transmission just over the detent. My thought is that there's a dead spot in the range sensor somewhere.

But that's probably less helpful and more wild speculation...

EDIT: Also, do you jump it or do you ground it? I thought most of them went to ground when the transmission detected "park" or "neutral".

So confused. I guess it's possible that I have not properly jumpered pins B and C (as your link plus the one I found last night in the driveway indicated). I guess I'll go over there another night and try to take the switch off. I had all the wrong tools last night.

Though I could not get the reverse lights to do anything the whole time, so perhaps this confirms the NSS.

"Infamous red XJ" doesn't give me a year, or a powertrain so I can look at a wiring diagram...

Sorry, I thought it was more infamous than it was.

1994 Cherokee County, 4.0, auto