Friend’s 08 JKU had a no crank condition Sunday. As it’s a 147k mile vehicle and he’s second owner we know nothing of it’s history.

12v. test probe, power at top starter post, nothing to solenoid trigger wire. So that ruled out starter failure.

Now starting to look at ignition switch or security system. No spare ignition key so we can’t try that. Cycle the ignition switch a few times and it starts twice. Then not again!

We have hood open of course. I’m looking at the firewall and the aluminum plate that the brake booster and clutch master cylinder mount to. Notice on the corner above the clutch cylinder a missing bolt. Bolt we found was waaaay to long so we fanned up some spacers from spare Harley parts, tightened it up and it started.

So in a nutshell depressing the clutch pedal exerts pressure on the plate. Clutch will disengage but plate flexes away enough to not actuate the clutch safety switch.

And as a bonus originally looking under the hood the missing bolt was not originally evident, the cross firewall wiring harness together with the pushnut wire harness that fits on the stud portion of that missing bolt kind of covered up the open hole.

Thanks for that. Mine has 71,000 miles…I’ll check for that tomorrow!

Chongo,



How I got involved with this.

Owner noticed that when the clutch pedal was depressed the stop lights would flash on and off.

Looking at the pedals when the clutch pedal moved so did the brake pedal, not much but enough to actuate the stop lamp switch. Thought maybe that the pedals needed some lube on the pivot shaft who knows what this Jeep had been through before.

Took the switch and bracket out to inspect it. It had been replaced once previously. Switch cannot be adjusted once it is installed and as a bonus it appeared that someone had bent the switch bracket trying to “fix” the flashing light problem.

It appears that the stop light problem has been fixed also. I think the mounting plate has been getting progressively looser and until the stud and nut fell out nobody tied the pedal binding/ stop lamp flashing to a lose and missing bolt.