outersketcher

okay, I've been driving my xj for several years, love it. But every once in a while.. oh.. say.. every two years or so.. my ignition switch will start smoking. You can see the smoke curling up out of the switch itself. Then the switch would start failing on me. I'd have to hold the key at a certain angle to keep the engine running. Sometimes jam another key in between the cylinder cover and surrounding housing to keep the ignition running. Otherwise, it would randomly fail on me while going 75 mph on the highway, or right when I'm pulling out in front of a bunch of heavy traffic on a busy intersection. ugh.

But its a fairly easy fix. I'd go to the junkyard pull a matching ignition switch, take it home. Carefully remove the locking cylinder, replace it with mine so I can keep using my original key and I'd be good to go for another 2 years or so.

a pain...yes.. but managable.

Well, my blower motor has been bad for months.. but it still growls and rumbles on high. I was out of a job at the time and didn't have the funds to fix it. Now I do. And I'm going to just replace the motor, the resister and the relay with brand new, aftermarket units.

I know that a blown motor and blown resister sends more (voltage?) coursing through the wiring.. overheating and smoking at the relay and resister and can even start a fire. I don't know if mine are in that state, but I expect that I will find them so.

Do you think that heavy electrical load may have contributed to my ignition burning out this last time around? I just had to replace my ignition switch again last month. the circuit board was blackened and burned badly on the one I removed. And the new one has already started smoking agian...

I think its the extra load from the faulty blower motor, relay and resister.

your thoughts?

outersketcher

I replaced the motor.. (by the way, if you get the cheapie motor that doesnt come with the fan.. your original wont fit. The shaft on the new motor is too small in circumference.) And I replaced the resistor.

but.. I havent been able to find the blower motor relay.
where is THAT little monster kept?

Also, i've reinstalled the window washer fluid reservoir, and I see that just above it in the wiring loom is a small blue connector plug with two wires. its clean, so I know it WAS attached to another end.. anyone know what that connector is?

outersketcher

listens to the crickets.. sighs... awww.

well, anyway, to go into a little more detail, I removed the windshield washer resevoir from the passenger side of the engine compartment. And removed the upper two of the three screws that hold the blower motor in place. (note.. the bottom one was wedged down past the firewall hole. as tho the entire dash assembly superstructure had shifted down a bit. I was able to back the screw out enough to allow me to pull the blower motor out but because I could not remove the screw.. I also could not remove the rubber gasket.
I was able to preserve the gasket for re-use.

The original was so damaged, I could barely turn the shaft with my fingers clenched on it. Whereas the new shaft spin freely. (Note, the new, aftermarket blower motor shaft is too small for the original fan.. by.. juuuuust a tiny bit. I had to scuff up the steel shaft with a metal file and scored the inside of the plastic fan and pressed the fan onto the new shaft with a layer of jb weld. )

I've been using it for about a week now and it works great.
Also, the 1995 xj does not have a blower motor relay. Even tho they store will have one listed for your xj. Dont buy it!

oh and.. yah.. the smoking ignition problem stopped too.
proving to me that it WAS from the heavy draw of current the motor was demanding to work.

and found that connector too.. took a while..but found it.

xj runs great