I have totally exhausted myself going through countless threads about the infamous problem with interior lights not shutting off. the problem is, NOBODY ever posts a resolution when they solve the problem. Here is what I have... 1998 Cherokee Sport. Kick panel, overhead console and rear dome light stay on when rear hatch door is closed. Everything works fine as long as the hatch is open and works as it should. With the hatch open, the interior lights are off. If I push the rear dome light, it and the other interior lights come on like they should. With the rear dome light off, I can open any of the driver side and passenger doors and the lights will come on and go off when I close them.

As soon as I close the hatch, all of the interior lights come on and will not go off. With the hatch closed, I have pulled all of the door switches without the lights going out. I pulled the rear hatch switch. I first unplugged the switch, then closed the rear hatch and interior lights came on and stayed on. I even pulled the actual switch that has the plunger on it and with it out and the hatch open, I can open and close the plunger and everything works exactly as it should. I clamped the plunger with a mini clamp so it would hold in while not attached while it was detached from the latch mechanism, then closed the door. Interior lights came on. So with the switch removed from the latch, everything works perfectly until you close the rear hatch.

I have removed the wiring harness that runs down from the third brake light and down inside the rear driver side pillar. I completely untaped everything, fixed a few broken wires with solder and heat shrink, retaped everything and did a continuity test on each and every wire in that harness. Everything checked out perfectly. I reinstalled the harness and plugged everything in, and am back to square one with the lights remaining on.

I did a continuity check of all of the wires in the harness that snakes along the rear hatch and into the wiper motor, power lock actuator (power locks do not work-not sure if that is related) and the rear hatch switch. All check out fine with continuity.

I have replaced the headlight switch a couple of months ago, and YES I have checked to make sure it was not rotated into the interior light on position.
Yes, I have also checked the rear dome light to make sure it was not in the on position, like I said, everything works as it should with the hatch open.

I am curious about one thing that I think may be contributing to this...There is continuity between the latch and the latching mechanism when the hatch is open. If I run a multimeter from the latch itself on the floorboard to the mechanism inside the hatch while it is open, there is continuity. I am wondering if that is supposed to be that way. If not that means something is grounding to the rear floorboard of the vehicle completely unrelated and may be the issue.

I am sorry for this long post, but wanted to try and give as much information on what I have done that I can to see if anyone can help me further troubleshoot this. I am convinced it is in the rear hatch latching mechanism because outside of that, everything works the way it should.

 

Your comment on continuity got me thinking, are your wires on backwards?

From a pre 97 view this is how the colours are.

It would make sense if they were on backwards, the latch would become live and ground out through the pin.

 

Most of the dome light issues I've had with various cars have been minor rust issues. I've taken Emory cloth and dental picks to the contact point of the pin switch in the body. You might need to pull the latch / spring / housing apart and clean up the surface mounting areas.

Post back with what you find.

 

Thanks, but 97 and later has different wiring and there is really no way to put them on backward. It is a single connector with three wires, tan/black, violet/yellow,black. The part that has me stumped is disconnecting the entire thing doesn't change anything. I have completely disconnected ALL of the rear harnesses and the lights still stay on. I have to be missing something somewhere

 

If I remember I'll have a look at the wiring diagram and try to go from there.

 

To give some info that you may be able to work with:
Yellow/Violet is +12V at all times. When this wire is grounded, it completes the lighting circuit to turn on the internal lights.
Tan/Black I believe is also a +12V with ignition on. This wire is for a dash light to say the hatch is open.
Black is a ground and should always be a path to ground hatch open or shut

Colours do change from one side of a connector to the other so if you plan of following any wires further back, be sure to check each side of the connector for the colours.

 

Using the circuit diagram, and a logic tree, some part of your wiring must be allowing contact to earth...if I understand your post correctly, (which I am struggling to do somewhat)

In that instance, identifying the most suspect wire and disconnecting it at the splice, or terminal, seems like the best way ?

In a worst case scenario, you would possibly have to cut wires to find the offender

 

Sorry about the confusion, this is really hard to explain. But I appreciate you trying. I have tested all of the wires in the harness and re-wired, re-wrapped everything in the harness to travels from the third brake light along the rear of the headliner, down the rear pillar into the quarter panel area. Everything is complete and has proper continuity. I wrapped everything back up really good.

If I remove the rear hatch switch itself, and toggle it open and closed manually with my thumb everything works perfectly like it should as long as the hatch is open. If I sit inside the vehicle under the same condition and close the hatch, the lights come back on and the switch will not toggle. So something about closing the hatch is grounding out that circuit, or opening the circuit, whichever is correct because with the hatch open, everything works the way it is supposed to.

 

its a confusing issue...the fact the switch works when removed from the vehicle would possibly be because it is no longer in contact with body earth ?

is the switch supposed to be earthed or insulated from the body ?

just chucking ideas around

 

I'm thinking that yellow/violet wire (12v hot all the time) is grounding out somewhere in the hinge bundle or against the body near there, but you say you've checked all that. That's the best I've got.

 

I agree, that is the most logical explanation

check the "splice locations" at the rear of the electrical chapter FSM

...or take a punt and bypass the +12V wire with a new one...if the light goes out when you cut it, you will know you got it right

when I am exasperated with fault finding, I run a new wire and bypass or remove the old one, problem solved

 

Thank you everyone. Some of the best responses I have seen on these types of electrical threads. You all gave me some additional testing options to troubleshoot this with and I really appreciate it. I think this all helps narrow it down a little bit more. I will update this as I go along so hopefully someone else will benefit from it in the the future.

 

I did something on my 2000 XJ that I'd like to pass on. I put a flush rocker switch in my overhead light so I can open the driver's door at night and not have the dome light come on, only the footwell and cargo lights come on. That's so I can stop and pee on my paper route and nobody sees me! Problem is, I cut the wrong wire so if that switch is off and I turn on the driver's map light, they both come on dim. Works for me.

 

Still looks like there is a short that you did not see. I think you need to remove the bundle again and wiggle the **** out of the 2 wire or run new wires outside of them as a temporary test.

 

That is the question I would like to see if I can have answered, as I think it will give me the best direction to go in.I have the wiring diagram and service manual, just not good at reading wiring diagrams and interpreting the schematics.