1997 vdp 180K miles, wont crank, wont start, will sometimes click when the brake pedal is pushed, other times wont, P on the shifter doesnt light up. Will not start in neutral either. Ordered a used shifter assy with rotary switch and solenoid, also ordered brake lamp switch, neither have arrived yet though. AM I barking up the wrong tree? Should I be looking for a BCU? Any and all help will be appreciated!

 

Um, throwing parts and money at it will not fix it, really.

Some simple, serious, careful diagnosis, and the ability to stay calm, works woinders.

The battery is common when strange issues like this occur out of the blue.

Being USA? market you have the electronic transmission, so some items are different.

On the RH side of teh J Gate lever is a switch pack, held in place woith 2 very awkward screws. This switch in called a Linear switch in some languages, I call it the ^&*(ard switch. It fills up with gunk, spilt coke, coffeee, DUST etc, and a good clean (off the car) and then refit and reset so the P lights up, is a 99% fix. I did a write up on it a loooooong time ago, it should be somewhere in the achives?.

The security system may be having a female moment and blocking you out????, dunno, my X300 is a poverty pack, so no such system, luckily.

The lsit goes on, but that is the MOST common stuff.

Others in your particular market will drift by soon enough with more suggestions.

 

As Grant suggests a little testing is needed. You can look through hundreds of posts here to see that that throwing parts at a problem very often does not work.

A few mins with a voltmeter and the circuit diagram will help pinpoint your problem.

As Grant suggests, check battery charge first. If Ok, I would first start by jumping the starter relay to see if the she'll start. If not then I'd go to the BPM and check inputs and outputs. If you do a search you'll find many posts that show the drill

starter circuit.pdf

 

Where is the starter relay? and where is the BCU?

 

Relay is in the engine bay just in front of the air filter housing. Your owners manual will show the exact location.

The BPM is behind the glovebox. Just remove the underscuttle and you will be able to release the pin and allow the BPM to drop down.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Well, pulled the starter relay, only have power on two of the pins (the two outside) Brake switch didnt do anything, new shifter with solenoid and rotary switch, didnt change anything. the P in park is still not lit, still will not start. Battery has 13.1 volts. BPM?

 

Did you adjust the linear switch as described by Grant in post #2 ?

Cheers
DD

 

I replaced the entire shifter with one out of a running car, it included the switch.

 

"1995 XJ6 Won't crank" - was my post with similar problems. When I finally got power to the instruments etc. I could crank and start the car by jumping the pins at the starter relay. What I found was the shifter was not engaged with the transmission so moving the shifter did not signal the BPM that it was in P/N. Once I manually shifted the trans into park under the car the "P" illuminated and it started. So, perhaps a dumb question, but are you sure the transmission cable etc. are engaged with the shifter? Have you tried jumping the pins at the starter relay plug to see if it would crank?

 

It does move the cable, I can get it to shift out of park now. Which pins should I jump?

 

Jumping pin locations 3 and 5 on the plug into which the starter relay fits should energize the starter motor solenoid.

 

Since half of these threads never have a conclusion, I did figure it out, once I jumped the pins and it ran, it had a gearbox fault light and a p1777. Turns out the fuse in the #14 position in the LH fuse box was blown, why? I dont know, I just know shes alive, and I only dumped $100 or so. Glad to have her back! Now to put the damn dashboard back together!

 

Monday night my car also coughed a couple times, died and won't crank. I towed it into my trusty Jag tech. I'll let you know what he finds.

 

Glad to see you got her going!