I hope some of you can help me.

I have a Jaguar JX 40 XJR year 1991. Today I changed the old and non-workiong battery. I conected the poles and heard a bip alarm. No sparks while connecting the two poles. Turning the ignition key I noticed that the dashboard lights are all close so not working. Nothing goes in the dashboard. The odometer has strange numbers (seems crazy). The engine starts but no indicator works.
In your opinion what could happened.
Thanks for your suggestions

 

When you turn on the headlights, do you get any illumination of the gauges at all?
When you first turn the key on all of the warning lights on each vertical edge of the dash should illuminate for a few seconds and then go out.
Does your speedo or rev counter work? Do any of the other gauges work?

BTW, the blip sound when you first connect the battery cables is normal.

 

Hi Jensen, Thanks for the reply. I have not checked the lights. The car runs. Unfortunately, no lights come on in the dashboard. No light works inside the dashboard. No tool. The engine working so started but there and everything else does not light up. Not even the odometer lights up and has strange numbers. The engine tachometer does not go
The beep did it I think the alarm system when I connected the battery then it disappeared.
I have not checked the fuses

 

are you getting any water in the drivers side

 

were all of the lights working previous with your old battery? Did something else happen which may have blown a fuse? For instance using another car to jumper yours? If you have the owners handbook it lists which fuses to check. I unhook my batteries fairly often and the alarm blip and the alien writing in the odometer are normal- the writing usually goes away on mine in a couple of seconds.

 

Hi gvalli,

You can download the wiring schematics for your car at this link:

Jaguar XJ40 Electrical Guide 1991

I agree with others that a good start would be to check the fuses associated with the instrument cluster and instrument cluster lighting. You can identify most of the fuses from the labels on the three fuse box lids, but also do your homework on the wiring schematics by following the battery power and ignition switched power supplies for the instrument cluster back to their sources at the fuse boxes. Sometimes the fuse box labels don't tell the whole story.

Please keep us informed.

Cheers,

Don