Dieter Weise

Hello,
96 XJ Sport, 4d, 4.0l. The police have pointed out to me that my tail lights don't work. Rear turn signals, hazards, and all brake lights (and all front lights) work normally. Filaments look good in tail/brake lights. The right rear white reverse light works. But the left rear reverse light bulb was badly rusted into the socket. I took it out, tried to clean the socket, and put in a new bulb - it's still not lighting up. The battery drains away quickly when the engine's off - now in less than an hour (it's gotten worse, it seems, since I installed new battery terminals). The 15 amp fuse #15 (which the book says powers the headlamp switch) has blown out a couple times; other fuses OK. Could the corroded reverse socket be messing everything up? I haven't been able to make much progress in researching this, so I wanted to describe these symptoms in case they pinpoint something to someone with more electrical experience.

Dieter Weise

Update: reverse lights now both working after all. Somehow today the correct amount of bulb wiggling brought the left one back to life. No tail lights. The little bulbs built in to the yellow rubber sockets on the back side there look like they might be burned out. Will try splicing new ones in and see what it does.

moonsandals

I'm glad you are making progress.

I'd just swap the sockets with all new ones. I bought mine online, cut the old ones out and soldered new ones in. Takes very little time and gives you fresh sockets to start from.

I'm also a fan of replacing the headlight switch at the same time, just as a preventative measure. Especially if you pull any part of your dash apart to do any troubleshooting.

The tail light sockets should not cause a battery drain when the ignition is off. The lights are turned on/ off up behind the dash. The sockets are in the back. These are two separate but frustrating issues. I am willing to bet the sockets are the cause of your blown PARK fuse though. The headlight switch *could* cause battery drain.

Do you have a wiring diagram? My wiring diagram is for my year (91) and would be confusing or wrong so I won't post it.

There are two easy-ish ways to find the location of the drain. A battery drain may not always result in blown fuse. (If the fuse blows then no more drain).

1) use a voltmeter and probe fuses and circuits (pull fuse, check voltage through fuse or check continuity or resistance to ground. If you check continuity/ resistance you want to disconnect the battery).

2) pull fuses one at a time, and leave overnight to see if battery gets drained

Either way, that can cut your problem down a lot. It could honestly be anything so it helps to narrow things down a bit.

There are plenty more methods listed. This came up on Google and seems like good instructions.

Some things to consider:

• Under hood light, if corroded, can cause a drain. Might be easy to unplug the switch or bulb depending on which design you have.
• Interior lights, visor lights, etc could also cause a drain as they can get a bit corroded if the roof or doors leak and are not ignition switched.
• Again, pretty much anything else could be the culprit.
• Until you figure it out consider a battery disconnect switch. Look them up. Allows you to easily disconnect battery (neg terminal) when parked. I did this until I fixed my drain. Keeps you from getting stranded and keeps your battery from getting damaged from the discharge.