My daughters new to her 1997 XJ has been little fixes here and there to be as safe as I can make it for her. She has been helping every step of the way, when she can and she's not working. I knew of the rear liftgate wiring issues when I purchased the XJ. I finally got to it today as the rear wiper, rear defroster, third brake light and back up lights all do not work. This is what I found 13 wires, 9 completely broken and the other 5 half broke. Removed the harness and have a very close dependable friend who loves wiring issues and fixing them taking care of all the issues. Here is a picture prior to removing harness.

 

You can get fine stranded, flexible wires for machine tools from McMaster that can be spliced in for a permanent fix.

 

Impressive! I guess my liftgate has not had a lot of cycles, no busted wires yet. Make sure to leave as much slack as possible to minimize wire flexing.

 

Great info I may just need to do this same project oh Lord help me.

 

Consider changing the path of the wire harness. I made the new harness cross over diagonally like this guy did:


It puts way less stress on the wires as they are not forced to bend almost 90-degrees every time the door is opened. I had to extend the washer hose like 10” or so.

 

I forgot to mention what a GREAT opportunity this is to install a backup camera.