Electrical issues

No problem, I'm just typing - you're the one doing all the work lol.

Also another note I've read on here that there are some wiring differences on '97 models depending on when they were produced. I have a 99 so I never really looked into it, but I just recall seeing some folks mention it.


Of course I had to get a bastard year Jeep lol... Thanks Joelacher I’ll try that out later.
 
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Found This pic in another thread on this site... apparently there is a plug box up there... have been a bit lazy so I haven’t looked at mine yet. I’ll keep you all posted.
 
Wow, that’s crowded!

Yea it is... the picture doesn’t even do it justice... tried jiggling the wires and pushing on the connectors to make sure they were all good, got nothing, not even a flicker.

Is there anyway this could be related to the ignition switch/actuator thing that it connects into?
How about the air bag clock spring?...
 
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More than likely there is a harness in the engine compartment that has water inside the connector.
Check the three connectors attached to the computer on the passenger fire wall.
With the battery disconnected... disconnect each computer harness and blowout the pins and connector.
Somehow I missed this comment at first... Just tried it and still nothing.

Checked all of the grounds that I know of...
 
How are you with wiring diagrams & a meter?
 
How are you with wiring diagrams & a meter?

Wiring diagrams I’m pretty terrible with but can somewhat stumble through... I am fairly decent with a multimeter though, just have to go borrow my dads. What exactly do you have in mind?
 
Wiring diagrams I’m pretty terrible with but can somewhat stumble through... I am fairly decent with a multimeter though, just have to go borrow my dads. What exactly do you have in mind?

Well at this point according to your posts you've already pulled all the relevant engine bay connectors & made sure they're dry... I think the most effective way to pinpoint your problem is to check continuity through the circuits that are common to your described symptoms. Gimme a couple of days and I can make you some walk-through stuff that shows you how to check from continuity from pin to pin, segment the circuits, and find where the problem is. I do it for a living on aircraft so it isn't too complicated if you want to give it a go. Give me a few days.

Are you good with using a meter to check for continuity/resistance? If not let me know and I'll explain it.
 
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Well at this point according to your posts you've already pulled all the relevant engine bay connectors & made sure they're dry... I think the most effective way to pinpoint your problem is to check continuity through the circuits that are common to your described symptoms. Gimme a couple of days and I can make you some walk-through stuff that shows you how to check from continuity from pin to pin, segment the circuits, and find where the problem is. I do it for a living on aircraft so it isn't too complicated if you want to give it a go. Give me a few days.

Are you good with using a meter to check for continuity/resistance? If not let me know and I'll explain it.

You’re the best man! I have a Fluke 177 multimeter and know how to use is decently.

I hope I can get you back sometime for all the help you’re providing me!

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That Fluke is a nice little meter, I have the same one. Sorry it took me so long to get back, the wife had arm surgery and I've been playing Mr. Mom / teacher with my kids all week.

The basic idea of narrowing down this problem is looking through the wiring diagrams to see what all is common between all the circuits. For the Dome light, courtesy light, & radio, they all start in the PDC at the same fuse & have connector C108 in common. For the gauges, they start at the PCM & also go through connector C108 and into the instrument cluster (which is why I suggested finding that C108 connector).

All of your wiring diagrams start with power at the top & ground at the bottom, like a 'start to finish' concept. For example look at the radio diagram here and you'll see that it starts at the battery, goes to the PDC through fuse 17. The wiring diagram calls the two pins on the fuse A14 & A13. Then it leaves the PDC at connector C100, goes to connector C108 (where it also splits off to your underhood lamp & dome lamp) through connector C203, splice S204, and into the back of the radio at connector C220 pin 7.

For the purpose of using that Fluke, the idea is to check wiring by measuring for resistance in ohms. You'll set your dial to the ohms symbol (about 12:30 on your Fluke), place the leads on either end of the wire in question, and see what you have for a reading. Typical automotive circuits should give you something in the low single digits, like 1-4 ohms. If you get a reading of "OL" (out of limits), that means the resistance is so high that the meter can't measure it and this is indicative of an open wire.

So using that on the first diagram here for your radio, you would set your meter to read ohms, place one lead on pin A13 in your PDC, your other lead on pin 7 in the connector on the back of your radio. If your reading is open (or OL) then the next step is to segment the circuit and see where the problem is. Since C108 is in the middle, you could disconnect that and check from the PDC to C108, and then C108 to your radio. If you get a good reading going one direction and a bad reading going the other, you know which end the problem is on.

All that being said, the fact that your problems began after water got on the engine makes me think your problem is going to be in the engine compartment. I saw above that you found that cluster up under the dash where C108 sits, that connector is in common with everything else but it looks well out of the way of being able to get wet. Have you unplugged it yet and looked up in there?



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One more thing about your manual: there are some really important sections in 8W that you can use in addition to the diagrams themselves to figure out where connectors are, what they look like, and how the pins are arranged.

8W-80 & 8W-90 have all pictures of where your connectors are in the Jeep.

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And section 8W-11 shows you where all the fuses are, the circuits they control, and where to place your meter probe if you're checking from the PDC:

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I’m not sure if this helps/ narrows things down. Honestly it just confuses me more...

I can confirm that the fuse block (behind the glove box) gets power on both fuse 10 and 15 by plugging my cb radio’s add a fuse into the slot... From what I can determine from the diagrams qslim posted, how is that possible?
 
Just wanted to update this thread and let everyone know how it was solved. A friend helped me test a few spots as described above and we determined that the fuse under the hood wasn’t receiving power. After looking at a couple ground points etc we decided to pull the fuse box off its stand. Low and behold there was a short right under it of the pink wire with white tracer.

What had happened is this wire (and a few others actually) had rubbed on the metal fuse box tray and worn away the rubber insulation. When water hit them when i was spraying off my engine it shorted them out completely. We simply spliced them and repaired them with waterproof butt connectors a boom! Everything was back to working.

Thanks everyone for the help, especially qslim!