I know it is very unusual to have an electrical problem on a Jaguar. But I have one and would like any suggestions or ideas anyone might have.

A couple of times I have run over one of those devices that will blow your tires if you back up or go the wrong way and hit it with just the wheels on one side. This rocks the car to the left quite a bit when I hit this bump. Several times this action has caused alll my instrument message lights to come on for a few seconds and then all to go off except the air bag warning light. I then just stop the car, shut off the engine and restart. Every thing works fine after that. Then one day I stopped at a stop light and the car died. After restarting it would not shift out of third gear. In that case I may not have gone back to park to restart. Shutting down and restarting solved it.

And another thing that may be related to all this is that right in the area of the dash behind the steering wheel I hear a relay clunking now and then. Not real loud and only does it infrequently and for several seconds. It doesn't seem to have an effect on any function.

One common thing that comes to mind might be dirty contacts in side some of the connectors in the area of the dash behind the steering whee. Cleaning those will be a big job. Does anyone have a suggestion regarding a spray contact cleaner or somethig that will clean contacts and keep them from corroding?

Any suggestions or ideas will be appreciated.

EZDriver 1995 XJ6

 

The first and relatively simplest thing I would be looking for is bad/corroded/broken earth connections in and around the engine bay. There are loads of them and diagrams of locations are available in the x300 manual downloads available on the forum. Another possibility might be a badly (loose) seated relay? Check every relay possible, there are manyalso in the engine bay, behind the headlamps for example. Best of luck with it and do keep us posted. These issues are usually notoriously difficult to track down, but the actual fix may be as simple as a turn of a screwdriver! By ther way, given that your instrument lights all flash on, might the problem be ignition switch related? Especially since switching off and back on seems to "cure " the problem?