ToothMechanic

Hi all,

New here. Bought a 97' XJ a few months ago. Bought one with a great maintenance history but unfortunately, I can't stay ahead of how much stuff is breaking on it already.

Today I was making a right turn and I believe that I kind of 'half' used the stalk. I'm convinced that I heard a bad noise come out of the stalk/steering column while turning the wheel... but I had some music on so I'm not 100% on that. After I made the turn, the signal wouldn't blink anymore and the dashboard light was stuck on for the turn signal.

Everything appears to function normally when the headlights are OFF. Lights full brightness, blinkers/stalk work fine. With the headlights on, sometimes I can get a few blinks out of the light but then it stops and the light just stays on. Only turning the headlights back off 'resets' the light on the dash.

When this happens and the dash lights are stuck on, the front lights (fog, headlight, turn signal, marker) on the Jeep on the affected side all dim, severely, you can barely tell the fog/parking lights are on.

I've checked all the bulbs in the different settings (parking light brightness, turn signal brightness, headlights hi/low, brake lights, etc..) and it appears that all the filaments of different brightnesses in the lights are working.

It seems rather random. It seems like some kind of electrical short or ground issue to me, but I'm not positive.


Help is appreciated.

MaskedMallard

Are you able to replace stuff on your own? Based on what I'm understanding from your description, I'd start with;

- Turn signal flasher.
- Turn signal stalk.
- Headlight switch, the one by your left knee in the dash.

dave1123

I'd start by looking at the turnsignal multifunction switch (leftside stalk) to see if it's broken internally. If you manually held it on when it was trying to cancel, you could have broken it. There are 2 pins on the bottom of the clockspring that cancel the turn signal and usually they break when this happens, but the switch itself can break. Since the headlight high/low circuit goes thru that switch as well could be causing the other weird problem.

The headlight circuit in that vehicle is wired so that all the amperage for the headlights goes thru the dash switch and multifunction switch without relays and can burn them out eventually. There is an "upgrade" headlight harness that you can install simply by plugging it into the original harness and connecting it directly to battery supply. Most guys buy the Putco harness, but other people sell them at places like Amazon. This will increase the brightness of your headlights and save your switches. Something to think about.

ToothMechanic

Would you still think that it is the switch if it is working fine, otherwise? It still cuts itself off when turning and still works fine without the headlights on. Hazards work fine too.

dave1123

You may have a bad ground somewhere that's feeding current back thru the turn signal circuit and causing it not to flash. All it needs to be is one bulb socket that's not grounded and sending current back thru the system via the turn signal bulb filament. A bulb that gets current from both direction won't light. Start by refreshing all your grounds.