Hello - new to the Jaguar forum. I'm kind of the caretaker for my mothers 1997 XK8. With just a hair over 150,000 miles it has been almost trouble free since she purchased it with 60k on the odo. She was only left stranded once when the transmission selector switch died.

Anyway, she took it to the dealer to find out why her tail lights were intermittent. They told her the assembly and harness would need to be replaced. Estimate of $625 for the repair.

So I took them apart, sure enough, the grounds got a bit warm.....

Other than the dealer, where is a good place to buy a set of assemblies? I already have two new connectors to wire in.

 

Common problem i have for years been soldering a new ground wire to the back of the light along the ground strip of the circuit board. You can screw or pop rivit a new ground wire whatever you want, then crimp a eyelet onto the other end of the wire and ground to the light assembly stud after you scrape some of the paint away to provide a good ground. Do both sides wether the other side has done this yet or not.....cost is nada if you have some electrical connectors, and solder already

 

I would call or e-mail around for a salvage yard and see if they have what you need. Do you know what caused this to take place?

 

^^^ its caused by Jaguar running a total of 5 other power consumers through a little small ground circuit. It gets hot and melts....Again you dont need any parts at all if you do what I recommended

 

No I like your fix! I did not see your response but I could not figure out how that would happen. I felt like it was a step back in time to the old wiring system. God help us!

 

Hacker, would you happen to be a 928 enthusiast?

 

Sounds like a plan, I've assembled a few circuit boards in my day, I should be able to handle this.

When I saw what happened, my first thought mirrored your explanation. Too much for a small ground wire. Considering the size of the ground cable just below in the fuse box, I thought running a larger wire from the assembly to this ground point wouldn't hurt anything.


That would be me!!

You know it's spring when all sorts of interesting cars start showing up in my driveway.

 

All better -thanks for the pop rivet idea.

 

Good job!
Brian

 

Now that is a job well done!!

 

Nice job Hacker, I'm going to save this thread to do this repair at a later date.

 

yes job well done and great advice, i too had a similar problem. brought it to a garage but what you did with your tail light assembly is far better. the rivet idea is just genius.

 

Thank you sooooooo much! Was quick, easy, and CHEAP, and it solved ALL my taillighting issues! You the Man! Thanks again!

 

Don't have the problem yet, so going to do this ASAP before I melt something. Excellent job. I LOVE this site.

 

Thats really a cool idea, I never would have thought of that. I had one XK8 about a year ago that was having the same issue, the only problem is that everybody else in the shop had been fixing the ground everytime this guy came in. In the end I put a new trunk harness in the car.

 

As a preventative measure, I did this yesterday (before I melted the connector -- I have some spare time, and I've become obsessed with this car!!).

I had a problem though. Where you put the rivet interferes with the body opening. If you look it dips down between the two upper bulbs. So, I moved it closer to the inboard bulb to eliminate the interference. I should have taken pictures, but I don't know how to post them yet. Anyone thinking of doing this should move the hole for the rivet. Oh, and you don't have to run the wire through a hole in the housing..just attach it to the inner tail lens stud--after scraping the paint) Otherwise it's a very good fix.

Okay, I better take pictures huh.

 

This is a common issue with the 97-00 MY Xks. Your fix is the recommended one.

 

For the record, Brutal suggested this fix in post #2 - credit due

I didn't notice anything rubbing, I'll double check the next time my mother stops over with the car (spring...) or when I'm at their place for x-mas.

Did I mention her Jag has almost 160k on it now with only routine maintenance except for a trans selector switch?

Anyway, I ran the new ground outside the housing because of the way the pin in the connector looked.

 

So are you putting the spade over the last pin thing where your ground was? If so, how do you plug the rest of the connector in? Or are you just doing a common ground from metal to metal?

 

I don't remember but I'm 99% sure I ran them to a common chassis ground.