Replaced Headliner - Dome Lights & Radio Out

96 Cherokee Sport 242 Manual 4x4

Took out the headliner and last night and the radio wouldn't work. I figured it had to be something with the dome lights not being installed. Replaced the headliner today and reinstalled everything, still no dome lights or radio.

All fuses are good, #2 is the dome and radio I believe.

~ T

On the '93 the primary fuse for both dome, courtesy lights and radio is #9 (red 10a). I believe yours will be the same but can't swear to that. The #2 and #15 fuses are shown to have something to do with clock, radio illumination, dome lights,etc. One of these will be the radio memory and I believe on most radios, both the key-on and memory current must be present for the radio to work.

Fuses looked fine. Started changing them anyway. #9 was the culprit although I can't see where it burnt. Thanks Pelican.

~ T

Glad you solved it.

I didn't originally notice that you have a 5-speed. I don't know how long you have owned your xj or what you know of it's history but when the clutch master cylinder fails, it tends to dump brake fluid on the fuse block resulting in fuse failure, often without apparent damage to the fuse or block. This can go on for many months or even years in some cases as the residue attacks the plastic fuse cases or contacts. I know this from hard experience with my old '85, long before all the good info was available on the internet and >

Obviously, I don't know if this is what led to your situation (perhaps not if the fuse blew during the headliner replacement) but thought I would mention it.

also my 96 has an addendum that shows different fuses #'s than the actual manual

By '96 they changed the location of that fuseblock, but I had that same problem in my '89...drove me nuts trying to track down electrical problems until we tracked it down to a rotting fuseblock. Ended up with quite a few inline fuses in the wiring to get around that mess.

Back to the OP - do you have vanity mirrors? I apparently nicked the power wire on my old '96 when pulling the headliner down once - popped that fuse like nobody's business. The pink power wire is only protected by the mount on the visor and is otherwise exposed to the edges of the sheetmetal roof.

Jim www.yuccaman.com

Good news about the fuse block -- one less thing to worry about.

I forgot about the vanity mirror. A local guy did my first headliner replacement. He did a really nice job overall but cut into the mirror light wire when screwing the visor mount back on. Took me awhile to finally figure out why that fuse kept blowing.