Switch and power door locks?

These things have all totally stopped working except the locks which function intermittently, and I have a state safety inspection coming up in a few weeks. I know I need to get off my butt and begin to fix them. This is a fine running, '97 4x4 with 290K, otherwise well maintained vehicle.

I'm going to get on this now so after a thorough evaluation, I will begin by servicing each connector that comes out of the Steering column, I guess.

Anyway ... have any of you experienced these faults all together like this? ... or no? Individually there are plenty o' threads on here about most of these problems Any ideas that might save me time in sorting this mess out would be greatly appreciated, mates

 

The Neutral Safety switch is all by itself on the transmission. Mine acts up intermittently, sometimes my Jeep won't crank when I turn the key, and I have the bump the shifter forward. It did it constantly when I first bought it, then stopped doing it all summer long, then just the other day did it again but only once.

The power door locks are likely inop due to the wire leading from the driver's door control panel to the firewall has fractured in the door jamb - you know that rubber tube between your door and the body? The wires that run through there have a tendency to become brittle and fracture over time as the door is opened and closed. There's no guarantee that's the problem, but it's likely. Power locks shouldn't affect the inspection either way, should they? As long as the locks still work, it shouldn't matter if they're power, would be my thinking.

I also don't think your inop A/C will be a problem as it's not a safety item, unless those inspections are REALLY that ridiculous... either way, there could be many reasons why the A/C doesn't work - bad compressor, leaking condenser, etc.

As for the horn, find where the horn actually is in the engine bay. Go to the junk yard and buy another one off of pretty much any vehicle, as long as it fits. Wire the new one in (I would keep the connector from the donor vehicle and just wire on the plug to the existing wiring) and it should work. For example, the horn on my 77 Cutlass failed, so I went to the JY and pulled one of the 4-tone LOUD horns from an old Caddy and put that in, worked great.

Speed control, I'm assuming you mean cruise control? That could be a bad servo, could be that the switch itself is bad...

But no, to answer your question, it's not likely that they're all related as far as ONE wire cluster being bad. It is possible that the same incident caused everything to fail - say, driving through some deep water, which isn't really a smart thing to do if your Jeep isn't at least somewhat water proofed.

 

TY Olds77 ... great stuff. I know the horn works because when the power locks DO work, the horn honks. That together with the Cruise being in the steering wheel got me to thinking about the connectors to the column. I may have to pull the wheel to get a better look in there. Yikes. Ain't wild about that idea with the airbag and all. I sure hope the horn and Cruise control issue are related though.

I will check on that powerlock wire in the DDoor.

Now, I just observed that the AC clutch doesn't engage when I activate the control. So ... maybe the refrigerant level? Dunno. I will put the gauge on it to maybe see what the deal is with it.

I did manage to fix the High mount brake light in the last half hour which I didn't mention earlier. Connector underneath the Tailgate trim panel. Rained out for now though ... lol

 

That's interesting that the horn and locks work/don't work together, definitely points to the electrical problem being one solitary thing after all...

It could actually be the fuse block, maybe it's got some moisture in it?

Ever swamped your Jeep?

 

Never swamped .....

All fuses checked with test light.

 

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TY, Anony .... I do intend to start looking over all related connecters in a minute or two.

 

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nah ... it'll pass with the locks intermittent ... the horn is the real issue.

 

you don't happen to have an airbag light on do you? If so it is most likely your clock spring or wiring in the wheel for the horn. My 99 has that problem (have yet to fix it) ,the horn went first then the airbag light came on months latter.

 

LOL .. we both discovered it at about the same time. I got a CS today .. cruise control out ... sooo ... two out of three symptoms ... 270K miles ... I found a CS for 50 bucks. YAY

I too have been putting this off for YEARS ... EASY job too ... shame on me. Or at least it was easy to the the used part off the donor vehicle. Don't know if I can gently turn that clock spring to center it without breaking it though, do you? I posted that on a different thread.

 

How can you know which switch a 1992 Cherokee Laredo has with out jacking it up and looking?Meaning is it a 3 or 6 wire switch?

Wouldn't the specs say which?Where do I find out?