Jeep wouldn't start

Alright, I had the Jeep up on jackstands for a week while I had the axle off. I put it back together yesterday, and I started it up, drove it from my friends house to my house, which is litterally 30 seconds down the road. It sat for about an hour, and I went to go start it, absolutely nothing.

Full power, battery wasnt dead, checked all wires and fuses, wouldn't even turn over, all I heard was a small click that sounded like it was coming from the ride side of the passenger compartment.

Anyways, today I called the tow truck to tow it to my shop, guy got here, and I went to show it him the problem, I turned the key, (and of course this was going to happen) as I was about to let it go, I heard it crank. IT then started. I was like what the hell. I drove for a little, then It wouldnt start a couple times later, and I ended up hitting the shifter kinda hard, which it then started.

The guy was like sometimes the nuetral safety switch cable gets stuck and such, which I know the nuetral safety switch will not allow the car to start.

Is this a common problem/true, and can I do anything to fix it?

The day I purchased my Jeep,we took it for a test drive, went to the tag place, I handed the P-O a check, he handed me the keys and went in his house. I jumped in the car, turned the key, got nothing but some clicks. He came back out and said "oh yeh,sometimes I had to jiggle some wires to get it to start"... Well, it finally did start, I got it home and next day same problem. Replaced both battery cables and haven't had that problem ever since (a year and a half).

ya, but I took the cables off and moved them around and it still wouldn't start, but I also had power, I even hooked up my battery charger and set it to the jump car setting.

Sounds like a starter problem to me. Clicking noise you hear is the solenoid, but the bendix isn't turning. Put a hammer in the jeep. Next time it happens crawl under the jeep and give the side of the starter a few light taps. If t starts right up then that's the problem. Sometimes they develop "dead" spots, whacking it with a hammer will move the brushes just enough so it's out of the spot.
I don't know much about the NSS, since I have a 5 spd, but do a search, there's lots and lots of threads about that.

87manche said:

Sounds like a starter problem to me. Clicking noise you hear is the solenoid, but the bendix isn't turning. Put a hammer in the jeep. Next time it happens crawl under the jeep and give the side of the starter a few light taps. If t starts right up then that's the problem. Sometimes they develop "dead" spots, whacking it with a hammer will move the brushes just enough so it's out of the spot.
I don't know much about the NSS, since I have a 5 spd, but do a search, there's lots and lots of threads about that.

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My wife had a prism that did this sometimes. I had a rod in the car that she could use to hit it. If it gets real bad it helps to have someone hit it while you turn the key.....Or you could replace the starter.

ive seen like 426462 threads on cleaning the NSS lately.
do your reverse lights work? if they dont then its most likely the NSS

A word of caution regarding hitting your starter motor with any heavy metal object. Many of the starter motors use ceramic magnets that are very brittle and are easily cracked by hitting the case of the starter motor. Once you break the magnets, the starter motor is history and not rebuildable by the average week-end mechanic.