my buddy has a 93 xj sport. recently his passenger side running light stopped working. the tail light works fine when the brakes are pressed but there is no running lights when the lights are turned on. he swapped the plug, checked the fuses and tried to run a wire over from the other side and that didn't work either. just looking for ideas of where to start. hes coming over tommrow for me to take a look at it.

 

Bump, I have the exact problem on driver's side. Blinkers OK Headlight OK brake lights OK no tail or running light.

I spliced in a check light on the tail and have no power.

Been pulling my hair out since this morning trying to get it fixed. Im open to any ideas

 

Double post.

 

Is it just in the back?
Does the tail light work with just parking lights (no headlights)?

I'm not sure about a '98 (or Rauch's '99) but in my '89, the leads for the passenger side lights are fed from the harness on the driver's side, over the hatch and down the D-pillar. There is a harness connection under the spare tire panel on the driver's side that connects all of the tail lights (brake, flasher, parking/running, and reverse)... it's not uncommon for people to tap into that harness for trailer wiring which sometimes causes problems. Grab your multi-meter or a test light and start tracing back from the passenger side bulb socket to the main harness. If the switch itself were the problem it should affect more than just one light. I think it's a wiring/connection issue somewhere in that harness (assuming it's just the rear light).

 

I opened up the panel and checked there. No power at the plug for left tail. I ran a wire over from the passenger side tail and I got my tail and the front parking lit but I lost brakes now.... Also the damn thing won't start/idle without giving it gas possibly just related to the fact that I killed the battery messing with it all day and had to jump it. I'm pissed, this thing was dead nuts reliable up until now. I'm about to just rip it all out and wire everything up on rocker switches.

 

Does your license plate bulb work?

 

Yep, and reverse lights too.

 

It's very possible that your jumper wire is somehow linking the two sockets and preventing your brake lights from working. Finding the reason for failure and fixing it will be better than circumventing it 100% of the time. Be patient and figure out why your tail lights weren't working on the passenger side. Running a jumper wire from the driver's side was a good way to test the bulb/socket but it's not an actual fix for the problem. Sorry.

I've had the idea for a while now to build a resettable breaker panel to replace my fuse box.