Dim temp light

Im grtting a very dim light from my temp guage. Is this an early detection or something else?

I take it you have a XJ with lights and not gauges. If this is true then you need to replace the temp sensor in the head. It is located on the drivers side between cylinder 5 and 6.

There are two sensors, one for a guage and one for a light. The gauge version is variable resistance sensor, the one for an indicator light is a ON/OFF switch.

Sounds like over time someone installed the wrong temp sensor.

Also I hear it not very hard to change out the instrument cluster and get gauges. Been lots of posts on that you may want to check into.

Ill replace the sensor today, Ive got a very basic xj power nothing, Im glad to have 4x4. If I do swap clusters do I have to do any rewireing of any sort?

The first post is probably correct (he certainly sounds like he knows more about this than me), but there might be another possibility. I have guages rather than warning lights, but when the ground went bad on my turn signals/park lights I had dim glowing from both turn signal indicators with the park lights on - the best I could figure out was that the electrical current was "seeking" the best ground that was available and that was back through the instrument cluster. Problem was solved when I replaced the sockets on my turn signals.

Ha! I'm having a similar problem. My temp idiot lite was flashing on and off after the dealership I took it to (for another prob) broke the connector clip on the sensor. The aux fan also ran all the time, right from cold startup. I replace the sensor for good measure and spliced in a new clip from an old chrysler car in a junkyard... and now the lite still flashes on on off intermittentantly! Fan doesnt come on anymore though. I wish I had put a gauge in now, duh. is there a chance I have the gauge sensor already? Would that be a symptom of that?