I have a 2000 jeep Cherokee xj limited with a straight 6 and an automatic trans. I drove my jeep to the store and parked it about 10mins later I turned on jeep. It shook and rattled and all the gauges were down. I turned it off and checked under the hood and seeing no signs or leaks I tried it again with the same rattling but my gauges were on finally. I turned it back off and waited about 15mins tried it again and it turned on fine and drove fine all the way home. I had this problem once and the rattling went away when I accelerated. This only happens turn I on the jeep when the engine is still hot. Any ideas of what the problem could be?

 

Heat soak, OR, your engine is borderline overheated. Lots of threads here on heat soak; do a search on that.

On the overheating, what does your temperature gauge show normally?

 

I'll second the heat soak. Happens to my Jeep all the time if I turn it off for 10 minutes or so and then start it back up. With the intake, exhaust and injectors all on top of each other it causes the issue. Best solution I have found is to give it a small amount of gas while in Park to build the fuel pressure back up. After a few seconds, and a couple quick revs of the engine all is fine.

If you let it go long enough with the rough idle it will throw a misfire code on one of the cylinders. I carry a code reader in my Jeep to clear the code if I'm not able to smooth is out fast enough.

 

yup
gonna wire up a switch for manual overide to run my electric fan or add a time delay relay to keep it running for five minutes or so after the jeep is shut off

 

Would a heat soak problem also cause my gauges do stop working temporarily and the jeep from turning over?

 

No, I don;t think so. A bad connection will do that. Check your battery cables.