I am new to the Jaguar Forum and I have a question.

My left turn signal goes from regular to fast blinking intermittantly. upon inspection all the lights are working and no bulb warnings -- Could this be the flasher itself ?

 

The XK40's used to be super-sensitive to bulb quality and many owners often found problems with aftermarket bulbs. However, I've not read reports of this applying to the XK8.

Rapid (double normal speed) flashing is normally due to a bulb out but can be an indication (no pun intended) of a failing rear lamp cluster. Check the board in the cluster for bad tracks.

Graham

 

Has light bulb socket corrosion been know to cause BULB warning to display ?

 

? RE: Bad Tracks -- does this mean breaks in the circuit panel itself or wires ?

 

Evertrhing should be inspected...sockets, tracks, wires, connectors and ground connectors. If no problem is found, just replace the bulbs, bulbs are know to get out of spec. at times.

This car does not have conventional flasher, the flashing is controlled by one of the computer modules, called the body processor module (BPM).

 

Early models also suffer from a grounding problem and may need this tail light fix:

 

Hi
Im having this problem with the rear indicator on my 1997 XK8 convertible and I have the
pdf of how to fix but dont understand where to fix the free end.Any help would be great
Thanks

 

To the metal body of the car, which is electrical ground. You can scrape some paint off the area around one of the tailight mounting holes and attach the wire under the nut.

 

Thanks
That's what I thought but couldn't understand why there was a connector on the free end of the wire shown on the instructions

 

Maybe the fluid needs changing-

Blinker Fluid - $18.95 : KaleCoAuto.com, Your home for the rare, unusual, and hard to find auto parts.

 

I have been trying to fix the problem by modifying the contacts themselves. I twisted them to better contact the inside of the plug. and so far it has worked. I am still going to do your repair now just t make sure it stays fixed. Jags seem to use poor grade metal for the boards and I am some what suprised they did it the way it was done. ok for the short run but fails over time due to cheap.


Thanks for the pictures and info. Big help.

 

Unfortunately it was not until 2000 that they improved the tailight design.

 

I have had the same problem with aftermarket bulbs. Not sure if replacing them created a good contact or if it was the bulb itself.

 

I finally got tired of the blinkers speeding up and the bulb failure coming on so I did the deed and fixed the ground wire. Now everything works perfect!!

I did not have to have the added ground wire go through the housing, the ground stud is coverd by the housing so I just did it that way nice and neat and no one can see anything different.

Thanks for the advice and the GREAT pictures, it made the job as easy as pie.