The NSS has been playing up for a while in my XJ, but thus far I haven't got around to fixing it; nudging the T-bar normally gets it kicking over. Well this morning it refused to play ball full stop.

After unsuccessfully trying the trick of shorting the starter terminals, I pulled out the Haynes manual, and worked out a trick.

At the rear of the engine on the drivers side there are three plugs, a 6 pin and two 8 pin, one white one black. The black 8 pin is the plug for the NSS.

Separate the plug, being careful not to damage the waterproof gland. Looking at the loom side with the plug latch at the top the bottom row has three pins, with the blank pin being right most. The center two pins, B & C are the signal for Park and neutral, ie ok to start. An insulated spade lug is just the right width to short the two pins out allowing for starting the engine. The pins will go between the insulation and the lug itself if you're on your own, if you have a second person to operate the key you can use your imagination