So about 2 weeks ago my gauge lights decided to stop working.

Little did I know the tail lights quit too. That was until the friendly neighborhood donut eater decided to pull me over and let me know about it.

I lucked out...no ticket. But I need to get this fixed ASAP. I have to drive this thing at night on a daily basis.

Any ideas on what might cause this??? I'm pretty new to working on cars, so you'll need to break it down Barney-style for me.

Thanks in advance!

 

Check your fuze box for a blown fuse in your parking light circuit. If the fuses are good, I would suspect the main light switch. When the switch goes bad you usually lose dash lights or parking lights before you lose the head lights.

 

The Renix (87-90) XJs seem to eat light switches for some reason. In 3 years my son's 87 has gone through 2. I've had my 91 for 4 years and the original is still good.

 

its either what Buck has stated or its a bad ground for the tail lights or gauges or switch or it could be a bad ground on all of them

 

Thanks for the suggestions!

I will go out and take a look at it this afternoon and see if it's any of these things.

 

I checked the fuses. They are good.

I tried taking the light switch out to check it...but ran into some trouble.

How the heck do I get that thing out? I was able to remove the pull lever, but can't seem to get the actual switch assembly out from under the dash.

Anybody have suggestions???

 

I had the same problem, come to find out it was my headlight switch. Put in a new one and everything was fine.

 

That's what I going to end up doing.

 

take the lower part of the dash off so you can access the switch better, it a pain to get to that sucker. on the front of the switch were you puled the **** outo of there is a slit, put a big screwdriver in that and unscrew, take off single wire from the back of the switch then unplug the main plug, yiou may need to use a screw driver to pry it off then replace in reverse order.

 

i had the same problem too, but my fuse kept blowin and at the time i was puttin the back inside trim back on and i think a screw hit a wire and put it up against the metal. i hav wires up there for the speaker bar, and i guess for the lights, maybe? i put in a shorter screw and the fuse stopped blowin. i took a week off from work to figure it out, since its 230am when i get out of work.

 

mine had a dead short from the positive wire that ran from the fuse box to the tail light. If your fuse is not blowing get a multimeter or 12v test light and check to see if there is power at the left rear tail light. The jeeps are well know for getting shorts in the wire harness from rubbing on metal. Richie

 

Ok. I got the new switch from NAPA this afternoon. Hopefully will be able to put it in tonight after the kids go to bed.

 

Ok. Spent the better part of the evening putting this new switch in. The same problem remains. No gauge lights and no tail lights. Will have to keep tinkering with it tomorrow.

 

Finally got some time today to look at it again. It seems that the fuse for the Gauge lights keeps blowing. Only time it doesn't blow is if I put in a # 30 fuse (it says to use a # 10 fuse) I know it's probably not a good idea to use a bigger fuse. Any suggestions???