peligro113

I have a 1996 Cherokee...God help me...and when I depress the brake pedal with the turn signal applied it blows the 20 amp maxi fuse in my power distribution center, I have circled in the picture below.



I don't know what this fuse powers because it doesn't match my owners, Chilitons, or Hayes manuals. I know for sure it powers the turn signals and brake lights because when it blows they do not work.

I used a 20 amp circuit breaker in place of the fuse while I trouble shot the issue and i found that if I depress either the brake pedal or the turn signal by themselves the fuse was okay but as soon as I applied both together the fuse would blow. I figured I had a short to ground. I saw that the 3rd brake light was not working but I knew for sure that it was working before i started having issues. I removed my rear hatch cover and started looking for breaks in the wire and I could not find any so I removed the drivers side quarter panel plastic to continue following the harness. I cam upon a connector which connected the hatch harness to the main vehicle harness so I unplugged it and checked the wiring for continuity with ground from the connector to the third brake light and I did not find any.

I then did the same thing from the connector to the rest of the vehicles harness and found continuity with ground which meant there was a break in the harness somewhere. I removed every plastic piece of interior trim on the drivers side and traced the wiring up to another connector that was by the fuse box. I disconnected the connector and tested for continuity to ground from that connector to the connector in the hatch it passed with zero cotinutiy to ground. I tested the other half and found continuity to ground so I removed the trim panel below the steering wheel to test wiring to flasher but before I could do the test I burned my hand with what I thought was the flasher. Pic is below



I removed it and looked at the connector and it looked as if it was melting from the heat. Pic below



I decided to continue looking at the rest of the wiring in the area and came upon a box with some relays in it. One was for the defroster and one was a flasher, it also had a few more which weren't labeled so who the hell knows what they are for. pic below





I took apart the metal flasher and it looks as if was overheating. I plugged it back in with the cover off and I could see the metal start bending as it heated up. I decided to unplug, put a new fuse in the PDC and test the system. With the metal flasher thingy disconnected the brake lights and flashers worked normal, and the fuse did not pop. Problem fixed I guess

Does anyone know what the hell this metal thing is? It looks like a flasher but none of the parts stores can figure out what it is, it has no parts numbers on it. It looks like it's factory why would I have two flashers? I would say one is for the hazards and one for the turn signals but they are both working without it installed. pics below








Sigh....1996 Cherokees the red head step children

cruiser54

Got a cobbled up trailer wiring harness?

peligro113

I did have a trailer wiring harness but removed it. It still blew the fuse. I found out that the metallic piece is called the ignition delay relay. I guess if you have your headlights on and turn the ignition off and then turn the headlights off it's supposed to keep you headlights on for a few minutes to light your path and then they shut down. That feature has never worked on mine. Most people with Cherokees don't even know it's a feature. I strongly urge everyone with a Cherokee to look under their dash and remove this relay if it's not working because as I said in my previous post my relay was really hot when I removed it, to the point that it was melting the connector.

If anyone needs the relay it's you can find it on amazon by searching RY300, it's costs $13.