AW4 Neutral Safety Switch Problems

[JeepFreak]

So...finally get Red running again and now her NSS is messed up. She is extremely hard to get out of Park but once I do it runs fine except for a few starts that had to happen in Neutral. Now I thought maybe the Parking Pawl was jammed but it does this every time (the stiffness from Park or Reverse to Park) not to mention I set the E brake in Neutral and let the weight rest on the brakes instead of the Pawl to see if that helped...nada. Didn't do a thing. Still stiff. I went to see if it was out of adjustment and I can
honestly say I don't think it is. Here's some pics so tell me what you think.

4598

4599

[msmoorenburg]

here is how you can clean it

http://www.xjtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1747

[nickyg]

Clean/ rebuild the NSS was one of the first repairs I did to mine. Also you might want to pull the cover off around your gear shifter and take a look for some crud.
My daughters Bug wouldn't go into park. I found a supersize order of petrified fries hid in there. scooped em out and it works fine. But the fries needed salt.

[JeepFreak]

Kay so I took it out, cleaned it all up (it was dirty as all hell) and put it back in. Nice and shiny contacts and nice and shiny casing both inside and out. She starts in only Park and Neutral which is spot on with a working one but now the problem still exists, it won't shift out of Park or Neutral very easily. In fact it doesn't shift out of any gear selection easily once the car is off. I think the Brake/shift interlock is bad and the people who worked on it here in Chico effed up the recall. I gave them a call and the lady is going to call me tomorrow (cause apparently the other guy who worked on my XJ 'quit'...more like effed up one too many times and got fired but was given the choice to quit). She gave me the runaround for 20 minutes about how if it is something to do with THEIR work then it's covered but if it's something else unrelated they won't. So I can already see them trying everything they can to 'repair' something that isn't broken so that I have to pay them instead of them having to do it for free. Unfortunately for them, they don't know that I know everything wrong with Red :flameon:

[nickyg]

Man!! Do I miss the days before vehicles had all this fancy voodoo and witchcraft built inside em.
I wouldn't even know what a Brake/shift interlock looks like or how it operates.
Please let us know how you make out.

[XjJeepacorn]

You can by pass it if you don't wanna pay for a new one (if it comes down to it) I know the one for mine is a couple hundred bucks

[cpttuna]

I bought one recently. It was $276.00

[4.3LXJ]

Kay so I took it out, cleaned it all up (it was dirty as all hell) and put it back in. Nice and shiny contacts and nice and shiny casing both inside and out. She starts in only Park and Neutral which is spot on with a working one but now the problem still exists, it won't shift out of Park or Neutral very easily. In fact it doesn't shift out of any gear selection easily once the car is off. I think the Brake/shift interlock is bad and the people who worked on it here in Chico effed up the recall. I gave them a call and the lady is going to call me tomorrow (cause apparently the other guy who worked on my XJ 'quit'...more like effed up one too many times and got fired but was given the choice to quit). She gave me the runaround for 20 minutes about how if it is something to do with THEIR work then it's covered but if it's something else unrelated they won't. So I can already see them trying everything they can to 'repair' something that isn't broken so that I have to pay them instead of them having to do it for free. Unfortunately for them, they don't know that I know everything wrong with Red :flameon:

I would be thinking of ditching that brake interlock then. It is not really needed and that item is not inspected in CA

[JeepFreak]

Well I do know that when it first was 'repaired' by the dealership in Chico, it made a click sound when I hit the brake in the gear selector box in the car. My mom's Chrysler Pacifica does the same thing because of her B/S Interlock. I only just now started realizing it isn't making the click sound in my car anymore. What I think happened is that idiot didn't tighten it very well and it just got loose again so now it's not releasing the interlock when it should. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that looks like. I adjusted my NSS exactly where it needs to be or it wouldn't start in both Neutral and Park (obviously). So I am at a loss as to how to R&R or bypass the interlock.

[4.3LXJ]

It should be a rod or cable that goes from the brake pedal area to the gear shift lever I think.

[JBone]

Actually its a cable that runs from the ignition cylinder to the shifter. I had to replace my ignition switch box (one behind the ignition cylinder) and noticed that this cable had a little plastic keeper to keep in in place near the ignition cylinder and mine was broken. All I did was zip-tied it to the the mount. Kind of hard to explain but if you look in the area of the ignition (have to take the bottom column cover off) you'll see what I'm talking about. Hope this helps.

JBone

[Hopkins]

Make sure that your reverse lights are coming on when you shift into R. That is the third check to make sure your NSS is adjusted correctly. 1-Start in P 2-Reverse lights in R 3-Start in N.

[JeepFreak]

Make sure that your reverse lights are coming on when you shift into R. That is the third check to make sure your NSS is adjusted correctly. 1-Start in P 2-Reverse lights in R 3-Start in N.

Yeah the brake and reverse lights come on still. I cleaned it out and it works great again. I am going to the dealership tomorrow because the lady said they replaced the cable (and didn't sound pleased) and a few other pieces of the interlock. I think she knows they effed up. So we'll see.

[ParadiseXJ]

The cable adjusts...just like the shift cable at the tranny, same mechanism, but the mechanism is under the carpet at the front of the console. When I swapped the AW4 into my MJ I didn't feel I needed an interlock cable, so it's not installed. I don't miss it.

Many years ago when I did my first NSS, I got it all cleaned up and re-installed it...thought I was good. Couldn't shift it though, so I took the NSS back out, moved the shifter out of Park, into Neutral, re-installed it, adjusted it and it's been fine ever since. That Jeep (the XJ) still has the shift interlock.

[JeepFreak]

Kay well...didn't do anything to it and two days ago it randomly stopped being weird and started working again. It shifts fine and I have no idea why so...whatever lol not caring at this point. Only thing now is the car tends to idle all weird at random times when it starts. It could be at operating temp or straight cold overnight and still do it randomly. Once it drives for a bit or warms up depending on the situation, it stops doing it even at stoplights. I thought it may be the IAC but that only works up to 1,000 RPM's and yet when I revved the engine up to 2,000 RPM's it continued to falter and make an odd sound almost like a clicking but that may be unrelated since the lifters are new and it did sit for a month so they had to puff up again. Any ideas? Besides replacing the IAC?

[XjJeepacorn]

Is it throwing codes?

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[JeepFreak]

Nope it's good now cause I'm a boss :D