98 XJ Voltmeter issues

98 XJ 4.0 AW4 242

was drivin my moms xj today when the check gauges light came on, i then noticed the Voltmeter read zero, it had no issues driving and everything worked fine, got home shut it off and restarted it, the volt meter read normal, drove again and after a couple minuts the volt meter dropped to zero and the check gauges light came on. any ides? i check the batt conections and they seemed ok

It's a gage issue. If you really had zero volts, the vehicle would stop running. Highest liklihood is dash connection, which the instrument pod makes when it is pushed in to place. Personally, I would live with it for a while. If the gas gage or temperature gage stop working, it needs to be fixed ASAP.

I agree; bad gauge cluster connection. Very common on late 90's models.
A search will turn up fixes for the loose connector.

My 98 just started doing the same thing. Just a gauge connection issue. Mine works most of the time, just every now and then it goes out then comes back on.

You can take off the gauge cluster and clean the connections, which should fix it.