Hey everyone. I'm new here and need some help please. I have a 1984 Pioneer with the 2.8L engine, 3-speed transmission, 4WD. This all just happened with the lights. I have been working on a couple other issues, my backup lights and my rear wiper. Now, I don't have any tail lights, or license plate light, or dash lights. No power at either socket on the tail lights. I checked each and every fuse in the panel, since none were labeled for backup lights, and all checked good with a multimeter.

Just to give a little history on the other things I'm working on, I took out the rear wiper motor and hooked it directly to a spare battery in my garage and it worked perfectly. I let it run for over an hour. I reinstalled it and it works, but ONLY when the hatch is in the UP position. As soon as I close the hatch, the wiper stops! When I reopen the hatch, it starts up again. I don't understand that at all.

I still don't have any reverse lights either (see other post). I tested the switch and it seems to test fine. I tested a new one at O'reilly's and it tests the same way with a multimeter as my old one does. Reinstalled the old one and still no backup lights.

Do these other things, the rear wiper motor and the reverse switch, have anything to do with the tail lights, the dash light, or the license plate light?

I'm at a real loss here and could really use some guidance.

Also, my high beams don't work. I had that problem before and they worked for a couple years or so after I fixed them, but now they stopped again. It was not the high beam switch before. It was something up front, between the wiring of the headlights. I don't have any marker lights either, front or back, but I don't now if the bulbs are any good. All of my fuses do check good.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Does anyone have a wiring diagram for my Jeep? Haynes doesn't have one in the book I have that covers my year. Thanks.

Wires going to the hatch. I'm not sure on an 84 but I think it is the same as later models. There should be an accordion kind of tube connecting to the hatch to the vehicle. The wires in there flex every time the hatch opens. They break. Strange things follow.


The rest of your problems are probably the usual combinations of corroded connections and bad grounds.

Here is a look at two of the connections.. their locations for in my ZJs hatch, and what they looked like. My ZJ is in very good overall condition with low miles. It was probably always kept in a garage. It also came from the south. It spent its entire 23 years former life living in Southern Georgia. Even despite these things.. I pulled the cover off the interior side of my hatch to hunt down and fix some really strange electrical issues it was having (like my drivers side window being rolled up and down could also be used if I wanted to turn on/off the interior lights type of stuff). You can see in the pictures that the environments of the hatch connections are not optimal for proper conductivity to readily occur... Lots of moisture and rust type of stuff goes on under back in there.. to cause corrosion and faults to these connections located back in here. I took all of these unnecessary switches disconnecting them from their circuits... Even did the same with my door switches removing them from out their circuits too. And my glove box light. And my under hood light. And my keys locks switch in the doors... Etc. Doing this fixed every one of my ZJs strange electrical issues it was having. Maybe find a wiring diagram to see what is on the circuit(s).. And just start disconnecting all that nonsense to see if you can find to fix it the problem, and then go from there. Everything is all tied together on old inadequate wiring pathways...

When the dash lights and tail lights don't work, that is usually a fuse issue. I would start there.

The pull on / push off headlight switch on / in the dash isn't the greatest. That might be you hi-beam issue. You should look into upgrading the headlight circuit. There are afew aftermarket companies that sell the wiring kit. It basically takes the electrical load off the headlight switch.