So I just repaired my wiring harness that caught fire due to misguided screw. (Oops!)
Anyway, all was good and then the radio died while waiting for gas. Fuse good but, no ignition power to radio, battery power good. Here’s the weird part, which I’ve seen before somewhere. (Cannot remember which car and where!) My courtesy lights, which were working normal, now go out when the ignition is turned on! Back feeding through a ground? That’s what I am vaguely remembering.
Anybody? 96 XJS.
THANKS!

 

On most of the recent XJSs I've worked on there are two inline fuses in the back of the radio.
One is for lighting and memory and the other is for the 12v power.

 

I’m assuming you’re working with the electric
diagrams? JagRepair.com - Jaguar Repair Information Resource

Did you run all new wires, or just patch what when bad?

 

Replaced most of the wires; two melted connectors. Turns out (I think) that I was checking the wrong fuse. I had replaced the knee bolsters and the fuse listing is different.
But still, is the courtesy lights going off when the key is turned on normal?

 

Oh, it’s an aftermarket radio.

 

It’s certainly not normal. I suspect you’ve melted some wires together….somewhere in the loom, a wire was getting hot and probably melted insulation and is now shorted, so weird currents are doing weird things?

 

OK, dealership fix 101, bypass the radio harness/wire, run the 12V run the ignition on, run the headlight power, I don't think your back feeding to ground, there would be smoke. Courtesy lights, divorce the circuit from the loom and run ground from the door switch to the lamps. I can;t see how your loom is shorted, but I've seen some terrible s**t on brand new cars sold to people with tons of money that tried to drop huge stereo systems into them. The fix has always been to make a new circuit from the origin to the destination.

 

Don’t see how to run to the lights separately since power runs through the delay/buzzer module? I believe I found all my melted wires so it shouldn’t be a cross anywhere. I may be chasing something that’s not there is why I was asking if the lights going out when ignition is on is normal. It could be, I just don’t remember. I haven’t driven this in over a year!

 

I suspect there may have been a bit of smoke when the initial incident occurred...melting insulation. The OP did mention a fire. Where there's fire, there's smoke.

Time-Pilot is right. Running new wire will be the way to go. I'd recommend getting some SXL wire. 16 gauge maybe too much?

 

YES, courtesy lights go out when ignition is on.
How about this... couple of years ago my stock radio wouldn't turn on out of the blue. Just by happenstance, I flipped the light stalk on 1 click and the radio worked. WTF? Did the radio decide to get power from the headlight stalk all by itself? Possibly unrelated, the CD player stopped working as well and doesn't respond to "alternate" fix of turning on headlight stalk. CD player has power, btw. Jaguars always are interesting, aren't they?
Dave

 

I thought it was probably normal or a really weird failure of the delay module.
The radio/light switch thing seems odd even for Jaguar though. Probably a ‘new’ enhancement they were working on, ya’ think?