died in traffic

ok so i bought a 97 sport 5 speed with 96000 miles about 3 weeks ago. i know a bit about mechanics and from what i see this jeep is very reliable. i took it on its first out of state trip yesterday, drove it about 4 hours to go snowboarding. on the return trip, i would say about 1 hour from home i hit insane traffic by the george washington bridge. i was in bumper to bumper for about an hour and a half and suddenly, with no sign of stalling, it stalls out 20 feet from a toll booth. i tried starting it and it was just cranking, not sputtering or anything. a towtuck behind me towed me to a parking lot, $125 later, and i get in the car and it starts right up. WTF!!!! and i was able to drive it another 1.5 hours home with no problems.

now i was always looking at the gauges and oil pressure was perfect, temp was about 200, volts was just above 13. what could the problem be?? i cant have this happen again because where i live i am always in traffic.

1 more thing. about 30 seconds before it happened, i noticed that the clutch was getting spongey. i dont know if that had anything to do with it.

Crank position sensor.

so should i just replace it? is it because the sensor overheated or something? why would it start working again after 20 minutes?

x2 on the CPS.

They're known to have heat soak problems, which would explain why it failed in heavy stop-n-go traffic. Once it cooled, it functioned again. Noting your spongy clutch, I'd bet on this, as your clutch fluid was probably getting pretty hot.

It's sort of a PITA to change, but can be done yourself. There's a bunch of posts on changing it here. I found it easier from below with a couple of *LONG* extensions and a universal joint.

awesome guys

thanks for your help.

Hi,
X2 for it being the CPS, happened to me, exactly the same symptoms, New CPS fixed it right up. Good Luck.