I am having a weird electrical problem on my '95 XJ. I recently had my alternator and battery both go belly up and I barely made it home as all my gauges and lights were flickering and/or shutting off.

Got the battery and alternator replaced and everything was working fine for a while but yesterday evening I went to get in I noticed some odd electrical issues. My dome light was dim like the battery was low but when I turned her over, the engine started perfectly (i.e., no slow crank or anything to match the dim dome light). At this point I also noticed my stereo would not turn on, it was as if it was not getting power from the ignition switch so it still 'thought' the Jeep was shut off.

It is as if the cabin is not receiving the full 12 volts from the battery. I have not gotten a chance yet to look at cables and put a DMM on the battery but I will tonight.

Has anyone had a similar issue? Any ideas what I might look at?

 

First step, clean all your grounds. Also check the connection from the battery to the PDC.

 

Turns out it was much simpler than expected. I was finally able to dig into it more this weekend and everything I could think to check was seemingly a-ok. For some reason it occurred to me that it wasn't 'everything', just the dome light and stereo (which is almost everything electrical in my bare bones XJ anyway, but that is beside the point). Pulled out the owners manual, saw those were both on the same circuit, pulled that fuse and it came out in two pieces... Replaced it and everything was good as new (except I felt really dumb lol)

Never would have thought to check the fuse when it was a 'low power' situation instead of a 'no power' situation, turns out that was the wrong assumption.

 

Heh. Those 'almost' connections will bite you.