tried starting it and it was cranking fine for a second then everything suddenly stopped. tried again and there was only a loud high-speed clicking, more like a knocking sound coming from the starter.

battery is good, starter is a month old.

checked the relay and solenoid as per FSM. The only thing that doesn't quite measure up is the voltage to the relay. But i'm not an electrical genius, so i could've been missing out somewhere.

have a manual tranny, so i pushed it to get going and it ran fine.

Update: knocking noise is the starter pinion gear moving in and out at super high-speed. It's moving too fast to see if it's turning. I expect that it's not turning, or it would crank the engine.

Does this sound like a solenoid failure?

what year jeep is it?
what engine do you have?
have you checked the connections (ie the battery cables to the solenoid, hot from solenoid to starter, connection at the starter, mating surface from starter to block, etc)?
make sure that all of the connections are good, clean and free of oil and crap than try it again.
if you still have problems get the starter load tested and make sure it isn't fried already.

-web

'95, 4.0

checked cable from battery to starter, relay to solenoid, solenoid has continuity.

i'm guessing the starter is fried somehow. but took it apart, everything looks right...but if i knew what everything was supposed to look like....

I know this is a really old post but I'm curious if you had to replace the starter or if this was something that could be fixed. My jeep just started doing this today. '98 TJ 4.0 auto....turn the key and all i get is rapid clicking, more than 1 click per second

Jump the small wire on the solenoid to the large battery cable on the solenoid. If the starter turns over normaly then the problem is somewhere else. If it does the same thing it always does it the starter.