won't start, sometimes...

I have a 1998 cherokee with a 4.0 and an ax-15. Up until last week it has been good to me. We had a huge storm come through and when I went to go to work one day it started idling around 2, 000rpm. It did this for two days, I unplugged the tps and made sure it was dry and added some dielectric grease after the first day. The on saturday I ran some errands and it was running great and idling normally. When I went to peave the last stop it wouldn't start. I wasn't getting anything, my interior lights weren't working, when I would turn the key Iths only noise was the speakers whining, I was told they were probably discharging the little bit of electricity thsy had. I tried this for about 20 min then made a call to arrange a ride home for me and the jeep. Right as my buddy was leaving his place I tried it again and it started just fine. Does anyone have a guess as to what's going on? I think I am going to redo my grounds tomorrow and see if that helps.. any help or ideas would be great!

I've got a guess, your battery cable clamps are loose, dirty or corroded. Or the ground strap at the dip stick holder or from the rear of the head to the firewall is loose or corroded. I just did my head to firewall ground cleaning, took me three tries to get "0" ohms of resistance. What I'm saying is, just because it looks good, doesn't necessarily mean it is good.

As far as the TPS goes, the water gets on the inside and shorts them out. Sometimes they dry themselves out and sometimes they don't. I've had pretty good luck laying them on top of the heater duct in the house overnight. I keep (junkyard) spares just in case.

You are right. My grounds are all nasty too. I scuffed up the battery terminals and the clamps and it started right up. I will be replacing the grounds this weekend, the one from the motor to the firewall fell apart when I touched it. I am going to replace the battery cables this weekend too, the clamps are pretty beat up on mine. Thanks for the help.