My 1999 XK8 has been off the road for a good few months while I solved a water leak which involved stripping the interior out. Having put the interior back in and replaced the instrument panel lights with LED's I find myself without headlights. The rear lights work, main beam on the flash and side lights are all working.

The headlight bulbs are good as are the fuses and relay. Suggested options are a faulty indicator stalk but I have been told this involves removing the steering wheel to replace. The other option is the LEDs in the instrument binnacle might be causing some interference but not convinced.

I would be grateful for any thoughts

 

Got water in the Body processor module?

 

Where is that located?

 

It sounds llike old fashioned fault finding with a voltmeter .. Diagram is on Jagrepair.com.
first do the relays click? If not then suspect the drive wiring to the relay. You can test the relay to bulb wiring by removing the relay and joining the two connections in the socket usually joined by the relay contacts.

 

The auto electrician who does not have Jag experience thinks it's the indicator stalk or the cockpit illumination bulbs on instrument panel throwing the voltage. Not convinced.

Possible I disturbed something when stripping interior out but nothing springs to mind

 

" Test don't Guess"

 

This is usually caused by a solder connection breaking at the stalk. You can check by removing the column shroud, without removing the steering wheel.

 

I was told you had to remove the steering wheel to replace the stalk which is a ball ache. I tried to remove the shroud last night and one of the screws would not budge.

 

Yes, if you need to replace it you need the wheel off, you can repair it without removing it.

 

I believe the directios in videos indicate Phillips screws. This is incorrect., the screws are Pozi-drive screws. Correct tool and no problem. Phillips are designed to slip. I covered the wheel, air bag, clockspring, removal in thread for Steering Angle Sensor replacement. Photos and details. Access to stalk is similar.

 

C, removing steering wheel really is closer to piece of cake then to hard!

Couple of points 2 make EZ:
Just remember to tilt steering wheel down & extended before you disconnect battery to disarm air bag.

You're gonna have to turn the wheel to get the bolts accessed from rear in 12 o'clock position.

When its time to pull unbolted wheel off, it takes a bit more pull than you can overcome with "stop pulling" signal to your muscles unless your prepared for it. Why do I say? Because there's a wire loom (air bag if I recall) threaded through the wheel - you don't want that serving as a stop moving backup (guess how i know - almost gave self a heart attack but it withstood my dumb move, no damage)

Frankly putting in the turn signal is not so bad either.

If by chance you pull steering wheel, look at wires soldered to board, find a disconnected wire or 2, I have posted photo of what goes where. Bet I can find it fast 4u if needed just ask.

If you're going to solder in place, don't bother with typical soldering gun or iron. You're going to have to spend $15 and buy a needle nose iron imo.

John

 

Not convinced this is the issue John but at a loss to find any other reason

 

C, our years are close enough, mines a 98.

I just re read your statement might just be usa words but I'm unclear on the problem. Please tell me what is wrong with specificity.
Admittedly I get mixed up with the term mains.

What works, what doesn't? Unless you specify ill assume your answer means both sides (L&R). Let me ask questions, it'll get me centered.

Does button at end of turn signal stalk work 100%?

Do you have auto headlights?

Car running:

Do running lights (aka parking lights) work?

All rear lights do work (turn, brake, rear fog, emergency) right?

Headlights high beam works in all cases when you pull the signal stalk back, right?

Signal stalk set to headlights on:

Dash lights dim a bit right?

Low beams both work?

High beams both work?

All turn signals work?

Does your vehicle have headlight washer? (This will tell me if you have factory installed HID lights. I seem to remember Europe got these, along with self adjusting way before the USA did.)

Previous inquiry begs the question: did you or any previous owner add Xenon (aka HID) headlights?

Here is one way to ID a faulty solder or faulty turn signal stalk:
Wiggle, jiggle, bump the stalk, turn on each signal, repeat; does fault go intermittent?

Sorry if this feels like a repeat, but it'll get me centered with you and the issue. If you want my help please answer these questions. If you've had enough of this I understand mate.

Fyi read this. Has photo and similar experiences:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ht=Turn+signal

John

 

After 40 years as an auto electrician you need to establish if its the high current circuitry switched by the relay contacts or the relay coil actuation circuitry.
Test Don't Guess ....... Too many cooks spoil the Broth

 

Hi John,

Basically everything works apart from both headlights on low beam. If you flash the stalk then the bulbs light up and blue internal dash light comes on. If headlights switched on no lights apart from side lights and won't turn on to high beam either when using the stalk as a switch (ie non flash)

Does this answer your questions?

The interior instrument LEDs I fitted are on 100% of the time when ignition is on. The auto electrician thought these might be causing voltage issues.

 

If we ignore the direction indicator & headlamp flash, the BPM controls side/headlamp functions using three (ground) inputs from the lighting stalk.

1) side
2) dip
3) main/full

The sidelamps are fine, so we can eliminate a problem on that input. Similarly, the main beam power/fuses are OK downstream of the switch since headlamp flash works.

So, we're left with a dip/main issue. I suggest that the BPM won't power main beam unless it knows that the headlamps are already in dipped mode. My reasoning is that otherwise, pushing the stalk back would work with just sidelights (or even no lights depending on BPM internal logic).

Either the 'dip' input from the stalk to the BPM is missing, or there is a BPM fault.

My guess would be that the problem is, as stated, there's a wire adrift. The wires from the rotary switch on the outer end of the stalk are constantly flexing with use.

The Blue/Yellow wire from the stalk is the 'dip' input to the BPM. See this snip from Johnken's pic on his linked thread:



Possibly the co-located blue wire from the stalk rotary switch has broken off the terminal.

 

I had a very bad water leak through the passenger door seal that was dripping past the fuse box on the left of the glove box. Is this likely to have had any impact?

 

If there's no corrosion & all the fuses are good, then I doubt it.

I had a minor leak in that area driver side - the drips ran down the side of the fascia on to the door card, but no problems in the fusebox. The BPM is behind the glovebox and, I think, further inboard, so I wouldn't expect water to get there from the door reveal.

 

I did worry I had disturbed a wire when I stripped out the interior back to bare metal floor. I even put down deadening pads while I had carpet out

 

C, As I was searching for instructions (advanced search: posts by johnken; search word: solder) I've previously posted, I came across this one (Remember this one Michael?). Its so darn close to if not identical
to what you describe, I'm going to pause searching for you to read it.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ghlight=Solder

As I reviewed a few of the posts I saw an important note for if / when you pull the steering wheel to fix: Turn the Auto Steering wheel position switch to off - or you'll be chasing your tail each time you disco / reconnect battery doing the job!

To get to the turn switch wires you will pull steering wheel off 1st.

Read, let me/us know if you'd like further instructions on removing steering wheel & steering column upper/ lower cowel.

John