Good call, I had forgotten all about those mystery buttons. Perhaps they disturbed some aspect of the security system?

Steve, are you still with us? Have you abandoned the forum in favor of ActuallyFixYourCar.com?

I'm still trying to make sense of how the car could have ever run with that one fuse missing. Late model wiring? No problem. Early model? No way. If it turns out you've got the late model wiring, don't panic. The basic troubleshooting premises are still the same. We'd just have to rework the test points, that's all. It would only set us back a couple of hours at most.

 

Steve,

Did I overdo the tranquilizer dosage? Six days since we last heard from you, with big questions still to be answered. Have you forsaken us? Only 100 posts in this thread, feels like we were just getting warmed up...

 

Hmmm.... I wrote a fairly long note a couple of days ago. I see that somehow it didn't get posted. Long story short... MY CAR RUNS NOW ! !
What I said in my note that didn't get posted is that I had two fears before I went out to work on my car on Saturday,
One was that I would go down your list, check everything, put in a new fuse, relay, etc and have it still not start.
The second fear was that it would start and I would have no clue as to what I did along this long path of checking things to fix it.
The mystery still remains, honest engine... there was no fuse in that one main socket when it started for 3 seconds last week. I'm serious. But wait, there's more. This will get your blood boiling. The other day after going through all the checks I took a deep breath, sat down behind the wheel and tried to start it. Nothing. No start, No fuel gauge registering. Nothing. I bowed my head in defeat. I surrendered to the fact that I was going to have to dip into my savings and have her towed to the Jag doctor. So, I began to clean up all my tools in the trunk and put the rear seat back down. Holy Smokes Batman, what's this? The wires that go to the fuel pump were not plugged in ! ! Once again, the car started for 3 seconds last week with that unplugged AND the main fuse missing!
So I felt a shot of adrenaline shoot through me, plugged it in and the car started on a dime. I took it to the car wash and have been driving her ever since. Poor thing was filthy ( I don't have a garage)
I made a diagram that I'd like to share in here that you can look at and approve for others that may have similar issues some day.
This has been quite testing and I'm happy it's over so I can go back to my guitar and write a song about The Blown Fuse Blues. (or was it?)

 

Dang, I must have loaded the wrong stuff in the dart gun...

Glad to hear you got the car running. Don't worry, your secret about the unplugged wires is safe with me.

Still scratching my head over that missing fuse. Please see posts #99 and #100, for a description of early versus late wiring. Based on the shape and orientation of the fuse boxes, does your car match the early or late wiring diagrams?

For an early model, fuse F18 up front is vitally important. I think it would explain the security problem, too.

For a late model, that same location goes to the washer pump or something peripheral like that.

 

Good news Steve!
So do you have a fuse #18 now?

 

What happened Steve? You don't write, you don't call!

 

+1 on that!

Maybe we can extrapolate some of the clues by ourselves. Look at the picture of his car in post #103. That's pre-facelift, isn't it? I'm not well versed on any external differences.

Or if we can figure out where he lives in California, we could hang out at that 76 station and wait for him to stop for gas. Should we take shifts?

 

I'm pretty sure it's pre-facelift the update was MY2002.5 in the UK and 2003 in US and he also says it's a 4.0

 

Bumpity bump, one last desperate try.

Steve, are you still out there?...

 

Crickets, maybe one day he'll have another problem.

 

Typical, drive by poster!

 

Per Karl's request..Can we get an update on this?