ASD relay keeps dying!!!! Help!

[ChuckNorris]

Hello all!
This forum has been incredibly helpful in the past and so I put my challenge to you once again - hoping that someone will be able to assist me!

I've recently had some starting and running issues. Then one day she just didn't start. Started about a week later out of the blue but then refused to start when I tried about an hour later. There was no spark. After replacing the coil and still no start I bought a multimeter and tested the input to the coil - there was to voltage to the coil! Therefore I went out and bought a new CPS. Fitted it and we had life again. The Jeeps been running for about a week now - probably done about 100 Kilometers (40 miles) with her. Suddenly she dies...
Engine cuts completely, along with the power steering and the brake booster! So I pull to the side of the road and get under the hood. Assuming there's a bad connection I wiggle all the visible/reachable wires and ask my wife to start up. She turns the key and the Jeep starts first swing.
I assumed there was just a bad connection somewhere so I went over all the visible wiring and cleaned all the connectors to the various sensors surrounding the manifold.
She ran for about 2 days after that incident. Now she wont start again. I tested the relays to discover that the ASD relay is broken so I replaced it with another. I drove about 10 mins with the new relay in until she died on me again. Ive just tested the new ASD relay that I installed and its also broken.

Whats braking the relays? The relay fuse is still fine - its not blowing but the relay itself IS!

Any ideas that may help?

[ChuckNorris]

I tested the relays by checking the resistance and by applying 12V to the two terminals and testing continuity with multimeter. When power is applied they do not complete the circuit. The 'switching' mechanism doesn't seem to work.

When the relay 'breaks', 'blows', 'dies', whatever one calls it, then the Jeep fails to start - it simply swings and swings and doesn't fire up. I needed to get home so I looped a piece of wire between the two contacts in the relay socket - just to make it 5 Km's home. That does the trick and she seems to run fine like that. The wire doesn't get hot or anything suspicious.

An extra detail that I forgot to mention is that when I turned her off she continued running for a good 4 seconds once the key had actually been removed from the ignition. Not sure if this is relevant but it sure as hell seemed odd!

[cruiser54]

It sounds to me as if you may have a poor ground somewhere causing your problems. I'm more familiar with the earlier XJs and their quirks, but you might check a few things. They used to use 2 main grounding areas, one at the engine dipstick tube mounting bolt and one from the firewall to the back of the head. If you have this set-up, remove, clean, scrape, shine and tighten all those connections before proceeding any further. If your 97 uses grounds in different locations, research them and repair as suggested. Hope this helps. Pete