Pain in my NSS

I fixed 2 neutral saftey switches this week, both on 96's with the same mileage. The first one wasn't that bad, spraying with PBBlaster helped alot. Some prying with an allen key was needed, but it came of without incident. When in came to my XJ however, it was not as easy. The "wiper arm" part stayed on the tranny after I pried the rest of the switch off. The remaining piece of the "wiper arm" had to be cut off with a dremel. A dozen dremel cut off wheels and $160 later, my reverse lights work, boy do I feel special

Just a recommendation, if you plan on having your XJ w/an AW4 for awhile and you can get the NSS off, take if off and put some never-seize on it. It might make the difference down the road.

--Matt

Here's another hint, if you can get clearance for it (and at the price of a new NSS it just might be worth dropping the box a few inches to get clearance!).

Loosen the nut on the shaft, but only a little. Soak it with solvent - penetrating oil, kerosene, diesel, whatever your preferred loosening agent. It should still be well engaged with the threads on the collar. Now take a pair of largish vise grips, and clamp them at 90 degrees over the nut. You should now have a vise-grips sticking out in more or less the same direction as the shaft. Now start tapping with a small hammer on the accessible shoulder of the vise grips, trying to avoid hitting it at too much of an angle. Eventually it should start to loosen on the shaft.

Now, though, instead of continuing to pull it outward, act counterintuitively, and tap it back in. Continue cycling it in and out, each time trying to increase the movement a little bit. Eventually it will come off.

The mistake many people make with seized nuts, pulleys, etc. is to continue forcing in just one direction. If, as soon as you sense any movement at all, you reverse and repeat, over and over, you will usually be able to remove things without shearing them.

Or you could just do what I did... I tried, and I tried to get the NSS off my AW4 to no avail. I went though what felt like gallons of PB Blaster, tried every trick, and it never budged. Thinking there had to be another way to skin that cat, i dremelled the original NSS down a bit, got a junk yark NSS and put it OVER the other one (like two NSSs spooning). Bingo. Just needed to pick up a longer bolt and some washers to secure it. Likely won't last forever, but at least I should be able to get this one off next time.
-Tom