Fuse connector replacement

[Andy.Morris]

Long story. We Replaced the stereo in our 1996 XJ. Everything worked fine for a couple of days. Now the dome light and stereo won’t work. After checking the fuse #2 I see the connector clip is broken. I have replaced the fuse but still no luck. Any recommendations on how to replace the fuse connector terminal? Or what else we should try? The cigar lighter does have power. The stereo red wire has power when the vehicle is on. No power to the yellow wire.

 

[Anak]

Your best bet is probably to go to a junkyard, pull the fuse panel out of another XJ and teach yourself how to remove those connectors from the panel.

You will probably need some small, thin prying tools. There will be both plastic and brass tabs which you will need to release from deep inside their sockets. And of course at this age, the plastic tabs will be prone to breaking. It won't matter if you break the plastic tabs in the junkyard, but you won't want to do that once you get to working on your own panel.

Once you get that figured out you will want to pull the clip that you actually need, along with a nice length of its correctly colored/sized wire for splicing into your own harness.

You may also want to give some thought to why that tab broke. That is not a common failure. In theory the fuse should have kept it safe from heat, but did someone do something to subvert that safety at some point in the past? Or could there be some other reason?

 

[Andy.Morris]

Thank you for the reply. I am thinking it may have broke when I pulled the fuse to look. Would it make sense for the cigar lighter to have power but not the dome and radio? Or even the switched power for the radio to be there?

 

[Anak]

You would need to look at the wiring schematic to figure out what is going on there.