Yay for electrical problems (Video!)

[ren]

You need the lock cylinder, as the ignition switch is located farther down on the column, and is actuated by a rod that is moved by the lock cylinder.
The blinker sockets can go bad(mine did and the lights quit all together). I replaced them with some that I swiped from a mid-80s' Dodge van, as these are metal, not plastic like the factory XJ. They have a bad tendency to loose ground (plastic ones). Try replacing the flasher with the one from the 4-way and see if that works better, if so, you have a bad flasher relay.
Good luck

 

[JJacobs]

The temp gauge and red brake warning light are supposed to peg/light up when starting, so that's normal. As for the rest get some diagrams, test light/ meter and go to town. Doesn't sound like too much to worry about for an old Jeep, really.

 

[mattbred]

Here's something interesting.

What is this thing?

Putting an Ohm meter from each prong without the connectors to it gives a reading of 1.5 ohms.
The black plug to the firewall gets 6.9 ohms
The brown plug to the firewall gets 3.3 ohms.

I'm guessing this isn't normal? Also the white plasticish thingie is split in two, held up by a ziptie.

Also, any idea where this goes to? On mine it just goes to an empty plug. Maybe for an auto or ABS?

 

[JJacobs]

Pic 1 is a ballast resistor. It lowers the voltage to the fuel pump to keep it quiet. They fail on occasion causing a start/stall. Pic 2's another random Renix extra. That's a cover plug on it and that looks like the og/bk F22 circuit, so there's voltage in that plug if you need some.

 

[mattbred]

Okay. So should each wire have that much resistance?

Just tryin to trace down any and all electrical problems. What is the best way to do it with a voltmeter? I dont want to cut any wires here, and I dont know how to trace wires back from something. Looking for tips.

 

[JJacobs]

Get access to Alldata, their online diagrams are straight out of the FSM. The wire colors even match up about 99% of the time. In the Renix era Jeeps a certain wire color is guaranteed to be on the same circuit even if it's on the other side of the engine bay. The diagrams show every connector that every wire passes through and in the larger bulkhead connectors will even give you pin location by grid.
Just look around for power where it's supposed to be. Don't try and measure resistance on anything that has power going through it. Voltage is key in auto electrical- I usually only use the resistance setting for locating dead shorts and checking individual components.
The ballast resistor should show battery voltage on one side and about 9v on the other end going to the fuel pump.

 

[mattbred]

Well the battery was disconnected for that resistance test.

 

[JJacobs]

Voltage makes things turn on, not resistance.

 

[mattbred]

True enough, but should there be that much resistance is what im asking. ah I guess it doesnt matter anyways if it has nothing to do with my lights.

 

[mattbred]

I replaced my ballast resistor. Man the old one was decrepid. I also cleaned the main battery ground and redid some wires, and also cleaned the fender ground and redid some of those wires, and I got a positive effect.

It was either cleaning the grounds, cleaning the fuse, or WD40'ing it, but my back wiper now doesn't get stuck at all, and works a LOT faster than normal! So at least my efforts aren't in vain hehe. But now I know for sure that my grounds are good as when it rolled out of the factory.

Oh also another thing I found ouit: My haynes book says that the distributor should be getting 5 volts from the bottom 4-part connector, right? Mine get's 7 volts. Is that somethin to worry about?