NO BUS/NO GUAGES ps..i hate this freakin car

Alright after spending 2500$ one getting the transmission on and transfer case rebuilt last week on this jeep I've only had for 3 months I took a roadtrip in it.

2 days and 400 miles no problem.

Then today I go to start it up and I've got no dash guages and the odometer reads "no bus"

I pulled the cluster cleaned and greased up the contacts and still nothing.

Checked all the fuses everything looked good and still nothing.




I've read about changing the connectors on the harnesss but they aren't the regular blue/green ones I've seen pictures of. They are black so I'm assuming theyve been changed before.


I need help and ideas please. I'm at my wits ends.

Voltmeter and taking test points. What year are you talking about here?

sorry its a 2001.

starts and drives but no dash guages

update:

Went to buy a new connector that I read about on these forums. The JEEP dealership said it wasn't available. Anyone have the name or part number of the connector?

On the plus side it started working again for now.......

Name of the part should be "cluster connector patch harness", part #5016261-AA, it is TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) #081599, issued on 05-21-99. This info is straight from my receipt, I had the same problem and this fixed it.

really appreciate it.


I'm so frustrated right now.

No prob, I was very frustrated as well. Drove mine for quite sometime without guages, mine just up and stopped working one day. I had heard about the TSB, but didn't think that was my problem, once I found out the part only cost $10 bucks, I said what the hell, and tried it. Simple install ,and guages are now working fine. Good luck with yours.

Dan

I haven't had this happen to me YET.. so what is involved in the install?

Basically just disassemble your dash, snip all the wires from the right connector, slide a piece of heat shrink tubing on each wire, solder each wire to the new harness (new harness wires are the same color as old ones), heat shrink all the tubing to cover exposed wire/solder, wrap everything in tons of electrical tape like from the factory, clean the guage side connector real well (use a small screwdriver and scrape corrosion off of each prong), apply some di-electric grease to both connectors, plug in and try it out.

The removal of the dash/gauges was a fifteen minute process.

The wires on my connectors are fairly short so I forsee that taking some time but all in all it shouldn't take more than an hour and a half at the most.

Pretty straightforward.

just so you know all the info - "NO BUS" means the processor in the gage cluster is trying to talk to the PCM/ECU/ECM and can't because of an electrical fault in the CCD bus (Chrysler Collision Detection, the data bus used in Jeeps to communicate between subsystems) or CAN bus wiring. In your case it's the connector causing an intermittent in either the CCD+ or CCD- line, or both.

Anybody else got any ideas on this?

The guages started working again but I replaced the connector anyway since I had the dash apart.

Worked fine for the last two weeks and then I leave for 4 days come back and no guages.

I'd read maybe a bad battery could be screwin it up so I pulled mine and swapped it out with one that has been fine and still nothing. Jiggled all the wires I could see nothin.

Negative ground on engine block to firewall looks good. Negative ground to othe fender looks good.

Jeep starts and drives fine...........

pikey77 said:

Anybody else got any ideas on this?

The guages started working again but I replaced the connector anyway since I had the dash apart. Worked fine for the last two weeks and then I leave for 4 days come back and no guages.
I'd read maybe a bad battery could be screwin it up so I pulled mine and swapped it out with one that has been fine and still nothing. Jiggled all the wires I could see nothin.
Negative ground on engine block to firewall looks good. Negative ground to othe fender looks good. Jeep starts and drives fine...........

Click to expand...

My 2001 used to do this often, mostly at 2:00 AM, while driving to work. The engine would keep running but all the gauges stopped working.
It usually did it for a minute or two before disappearing.

I tried tightening all the ground wires and diassemling every plug I could find and coating the contacts with dielectric grease.
http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=8196
What finally solved my problem was doing this to the large, mulit-wire plug up under the dash, on the far left side. It has a plastic cover with a bolt passing through it.
Unbolt it, pull it apart, lightly butter the contacts with dielectric grease and reassemble. Make sure it is completely assembled, it can be difficult to fully seat.
Once that was done, the problem disappeared. That was three years and 50,000 miles ago.
The same thing happened to my 97 Dodge Dakota pickup last year and we found the problem to be in a large, multi-wire plug in about the same position.

Hope this helps

Is that the bulkhead connector on the firewall between the engine compartment harness and the dash harness? Those are known to have issues... people have wacky problems and find them to be caused by copper corrosion (green dust) in the connector all the time, I don't know why I didn't think of the fact that the CCD/CAN bus traverses that connector also... great suggestion!

This is the same problem I have been having since 1999 and I purchased the Jeep new in Oct 1997.

The instrument cluster buss connectors have been replaced twice under the TSB, the contacts have been cleaned numerous times on the buss connector and cluster terminals and dielectric grease has been applied after cleaning and the problem continues to return...
All junction connectors have been checked and rechecked with no results...
Even had a Dealership troubleshooter look at the problem and tried to resolve it with a process that he uses and generally had good luck with...
Guess what.... the problem returns...
I personally have had the cluster out more than 6 times and even replaced the cluster with one from parted out Jeep... The problem continues to resurface....

What generally happens is.... The gauges will either freeze or drop to zero, the AirBag light occasionally illuminates with the Check Engine illuminated.... The NO BUS indicator only came on once after the dealership replaced the buss connector and had to reinsert the buss connector properly....

A strange solution I found for reactivating the gauges would be to make a RIGHT turn with the turn signal selector switch....

When I showed the dealership technician my solution...; the reaction I received was.... HUH... Never seen it do that before....
Technician asked... Does it resolve the problem every time??? YUP....
Technician says.... Now thats a new one for me....
Unknown why it works..., but it does....

Strange thing is... this same steps to reactivate the gauges has worked on other XJs... with this problem....

I was trying to figure out why my fog lights wernt working so I checked the relay under the hood and now my guages arent working. I didnt even touch anything else. Ill let you know what I find

When the gauges are down they're missing one of two things, power or ground. Get in there with a jumper when it acts up and see which it is.

well I was pissed and decided to go hit some rail road tracks at about 80mph. But on the way I reached underneatch the dash with my toes...right above the brake pedal....and jiggled some wires. Everything came back.

then the speedo and tach quit again again and about 10 seconds later came back on again. So at least i have a lead now.

Hopefully i can find somethin under there.

no bus is 99% of the time the connectors at the back of the gauge pod. i believe there was a factory recal on it. they come loose and corrode a bit over time. pull the gauge pod, clean the connection, lube it up with some dielectric grease, and put it back together. it should solve your problem.

edit. i just actually read your whole post. i guess you've al;ready done that.

good luck :dunno:

All my gauges started working again when I hit the top of the dash a few times, must be a connection issue somewhere up there. 98 limited