Overhead Console Help

Hey Guys,

I have a few questions about the overhead console. I've spent a lot of time searching through various forum posts, but a lot of them link to a site that is no longer active, or contain photos that are no longer hosted. Also, what I am looking to do is a little different than I've seen anywhere.

I've been wanting to add an OHC into my new 99, but really did not want to spend the $$ people are asking for the XJ specific 97+ OHC, and even more to get a specific 99 harness. This one popped up on ebay for $45 so I bought it to take a chance. It's a shortened console from an XJ with a sunroof. The back half is gone, which contained the RKE board and dome lights. I already have that in my Jeep and it's functioning, so I want to leave that all in place.

What I'd like to do is wire this up so the lights work (come on when opening the door and function as map lights I can turn on and off) From what I gather, the pink/yellow/black wires seem to provide this power, but I can't seem to get them to work as you'd expect by applying constant to pink, ground to black and switched to yellow. They either seem to function only as a door light, or only as a map light, not both.

The second task I'd like to get working is to use the screen for exterior temperature. Will this work without tying into the vehicle bus? I'm hoping if I can figure out which wires the screen needs for switched power and ground, and what 2 wires the temp sensor uses, I can make this work. I'm just not sure if the vehicle bus is required to convert the signal from the temp sensor to an actual temperature, or if the OCH can do it on it's own (if that makes sense)

Here is the console. Any advice is greatly appreciasted!

As far as I know, all the 97-01 OHC console functions and displayed data come from the CCD Bus data and the PCM.

Wondering why your original dome lamp wire harness doesn't have the functions/wires you need ? Yellow wire is the door switch, pink is constant, and black is ground.

Violet/Green and Black/Lt Blue may make the temp sensor display.

I can't specifically answer any of your other questions, but any 1997-2001 OHC wire harness can be easily adapted to make the console features function.

This thread may help ( or may not ) >> https://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=949746


I would spend the few extra bucks for a proper OHC wire harness and save a ton of headaches and researching.

If it is the thread I am thinking of, the deleted pics may be mine. The image hosting company I was using decided that I needed to pay them and I decided that I didn't. I should still have most of the pics around here somewhere. Send me a PM with your email address and I will forward them to you.


What year is the salvaged console from? I have done quite a bit of work on the older versions and they definitely don't need anything from the computer. The Outside temp info comes from 2 wires connected from the console directly to the display board and the compass reading is generated directly from the board. I have fixed a ton of the old style that had the set buttons on the display board and probably about a half a dozen of systems that look similar to yours and have the buttons located at a different point in the console. If the display board in yours is similar to one of those it should be possible. Any chance you can take a closer pic of the connector on the display board? As I look at this pic, I don't see it. The Display board would normally sit behind that dark tinted window. The backside picture looks like it is missing. Do you have that part pulled out already?

Tim_MN said:

As far as I know, all the 97-01 OHC console functions and displayed data come from the CCD Bus data and the PCM.

Wondering why your original dome lamp wire harness doesn't have the functions/wires you need ? Yellow wire is the door switch, pink is constant, and black is ground.

Violet/Green and Black/Lt Blue may make the temp sensor display.

I can't specifically answer any of your other questions, but any 1997-2001 OHC wire harness can be easily adapted to make the console features function.

This thread may help ( or may not ) >> https://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=949746


I would spend the few extra bucks for a proper OHC wire harness and save a ton of headaches and researching.

Click to expand...

The wires that go to the dome light don't have anything to do with the OHC screen, as best as I can tell. Those are just for lighting and the RKE board. This would normally be wired into the rear portion of the OHC, which would normally house the RKE board. Since I don't have the back half of this console, and am keeping my existing dome light/RKE, it doesn't make sense to mess with any of that. So, that would be a large portion of a $200-ish wiring harness (@current ebay pricing) that I don't need. I hear ya though, there is still something to be said for plug and play. I just don't care to use any of the other driving computer features of the OCH (MPG, DTE, Compass, etc). I honestly really just wanted the map lights, and thought if I could wire in 2 wires for a temp sensor without needing data from the vehicle computer, that would be sweet. But now that I think about it, I could also easily tap into these wires at the driver footwell as well, as those would be fed by the vehicle bus. I will see if there are Violet/Green and Black/Lt Blue wires on one of those 2 connectors as you mentioned.

tjmotter said:

If it is the thread I am thinking of, the deleted pics may be mine. The image hosting company I was using decided that I needed to pay them and I decided that I didn't. I should still have most of the pics around here somewhere. Send me a PM with your email address and I will forward them to you.


What year is the salvaged console from? I have done quite a bit of work on the older versions and they definitely don't need anything from the computer. The Outside temp info comes from 2 wires connected from the console directly to the display board and the compass reading is generated directly from the board. I have fixed a ton of the old style that had the set buttons on the display board and probably about a half a dozen of systems that look similar to yours and have the buttons located at a different point in the console. If the display board in yours is similar to one of those it should be possible. Any chance you can take a closer pic of the connector on the display board? As I look at this pic, I don't see it. The Display board would normally sit behind that dark tinted window. The backside picture looks like it is missing. Do you have that part pulled out already?

Click to expand...

I don't know what year the console is from. I do know that they were all the same form 97-2001 (which this is from that range). The only difference is the vehicle end of the wiring harness that plugs in to the passenger footwell. 97, 98, and 99 each have unique connectors, and 2000-2001 are the same.

The display board is there. It's under the tan-colored plate at the top. there is a gray ribbon connector that connects it to the 2 buttons, which are part of the green PCB down in the lower half. The black square connector is what interfaces with the vehicle to supply that data.

Thanks for the help, I'll shoot you a PM now.

I did a little more digging, and I am 99% sure I can't do what I wanted to do. There is no "logic" built in to the OHC to turn the resistance value from the temperature sensor into a temperature. This comes from the vehicle bus.... so I will definitely have to get the data from there. Also, the OCH screen does not get power from the pink wire. It comes from an alternate source in the harness. SO, if I am going to have to run wires for that and temp, I may as well just hook the rest of it up as well. If the wire colors in the OCH plug match up to the colors in my kick panel, which I think they will, I can just rig it up. Thankfully this OHC has the pigtail to wire to at least.

Also, I now understand why I could not get the lighting to operate correctly I assumed the yellow wire was switched +12V from the doors, but it's actually a ground signal from the doors. The lights get a constant 12V, and light up either when pressed or when ground signal is detected. So, at a bare minimum, I can wire the lights up and use this as a $45 dollar set of map/dome lights lol. Staring at that blank screen will always bug be for not going the extra mile, though.