Hi All,

i have a problem with the turn-signals on my recently purchased 1986 xjs. They worked fine and rather suddenly started to randomly stop working and now they dont work at all. The hazard lights still do, so it has nothing to do with the bulbs. I thought it might be the column switch and followed the site:
Turn Signal Rebuild, jaguar xj-s
to check that. Now i rebuilt that unit but the turn signal still dont work.
Does anybody maybe have some advice ?
THanks in advance

 

Since everything works with the 4-way flashers on half your job is done for you :-). Everything downstream of the flasher is OK.

Power for the regular turn signal goes through the 4 way flasher switch so first make sure there is "key on" voltage on the green wire going into the hazard switch.

If the IS voltage, try vigorously exercising the 4 way flasher switch...which can sometimes clear dirty contracts inside the switch.

If there's no voltage check the fuse, the fuse end caps, and the fuse clips.

Post back !

Cheers
DD

 

thanks a lot for the fast reply, I really appreciate it. How do I locate the 4-way flasher switch ? I tried to find where the cables from the steering column switch go, but they sort of disappear towards the left into the harness (i guess here). My problem is a also bit that this car having had several owners before was seriously tampered with, in particular the electronics. It is therefore somewhat difficult to reproduce the diagrams and locations given in the manuals. I assume it must be a dirty contact somewhere rather than a blown fuse, because of the way it failed (erratic at first, then continuously more and more disfunctional).

 

Hazard lights (to you) is 4 way flashers (to me) :-).

You said the hazard lights are working so you must know where the switch is. I muddied the water, I think, by using a different name for the same thing. Sorry :-). But, anyway, it's one of the buttons alongside the trip computer...furthest to the left, as I recall.

Your '86 still has the old glass fuses. They might not be blown BUT the steel end caps, and the clips that hold the fuse, are often corroded....causing intermittent operation. This is especially common on the XJS where windshield leaks have allowed water behind the dashboard.

Cheers
DD

 

thanks a lot Doug,

sorry for the confusion. I mistook the term "hazard-switch" as something different, probably because i already made peace with the idea that the fix will be horribly complicated. I tried your suggestions, but so far no luck. Next i will try to locate exactly where i loose the signal.
I'll post as soon as i fix it,
Cheers,
lukas

 

it seems that i dont have any voltage coming into the switch. Are the fuses before or after the switch ?

Thanks,
lukas

 

Before the switch.

Cheers
DD

 

i checked the fuses. Some of them had high resistances, so i sandpapered the steel caps and their resistance lowered. Although this certainly was not a bad thing to do, it did not help the indicator problem. Please correct me if i am wrong, but the way i understand it, the indicator switch is a three-way switch with power coming in on the top cable (green with a white stripe i think) and being lead to one of two other cables. My top cable shows only about 0.5 V when the ignition is on, i think it should have 12. So i loose voltage somewhere before the switch. Could this be due to dirty contacts in the hazard switch ? I think thats what i am going for next.
thanks for the help

 

Yes, it could the contacts in the hazard switch.

As an experiment you could use a jumper wire to apply 12v to the feed wire of the signal switch....just to see if the signals come to life.

A while back I had an XJS with no power to the signal switch. To save the owner some labor dollars in tracking down a hidden wiring fault I simply created a new 12v supply wire to the switch.

Cheers
DD

 

hello there,

sorry for the long time of nothingness, i was too busy to even touch the car. Thanks for the advice of the hazard switch. First thing i did was trying to get the bugger out of the socket, just as haynes suggests. Age did its thing, however, so it was somehow stuck in there. After some rather violent trials to get it out, i gave up on the idea and though i might need some better tools. A pleasant surprise followed, as apparently the violent trials loosened whatever was stuck and the turn signals work now. On the downside, my instrument panel seems to not get any juice anymore. The warning lights on top of it do, but the tachometer, speedometer and gauges are constantly on zero. I figures i did something bad to the switch, so now i managed to remove the switch, opened it and cleaned it up, closed it again and rebuilt it in the car. No change. Still the instruments dont seem to have power.
Any ideas would be highly appreciated.