Are there any speaker grounds or anything of the sort here in this corner? Things got a bit... Toasty down there and suddenly my radio is dead. I have a sub in the XJ box that goes in the cubby and that oddly enough works fine. Just all 4 speakers are not working. 2 door and the sound bar.


the head unit still has power.

 

when I unplugged the rear passenger speaker the radio freaked out and said that there was a wiring fault and to power down and fix it. when I unplug the driver side speaker with the passenger side plugged in it was happily trying to work but with the same symptoms. I plugged the factory head unit back in just for ****s and giggles and was able to get only the front speakers working regardless of what was plugged in if it was dangling by the harness

 

Pull that rear side panel and check your wiring harness. If the wheel well or fender flare gets rotted out it will allow water to get in and short out the tail light and outer wiring. Mine went up in flames and by the time I got it out, there was a hole melted the the plastic panel and there were no connectors left! Just a handful of charred wires. There is a fist sized hole rusted in the rear side of the wheel well and I can see the tire thru it. This happened just before Christmas and because of the cold, it took me until February to rewire everything. I just crammed 1/2 of a furniture shipping pad and a plastic bag into the fender to keep it dry until I can fix it right. I went to the JY to get a section of wires with the connectors on it so I could fix it and 3 out of the 4 XJ's I checked had the same problem. The strange thing is none of the fuses blew!

I take it that pic is not your XJ, is it?

 

No it's not. The reason why everything got so hot was because when my smittybilt xrc bumper was installed they had to trim the exhaust pipe back and didn't put a downpipe on it so it would blow down so hot exhaust was blowing directly at the back of the bumper was nowhere to go but up through the path of least resistance and melted all the plastics on the way I have sent replace the exhaust with one that goes lower and out past the bumper. So the problem is fixed I just need to get the radio working again

 

Its faulty wiring, or the tailpipe is too close and the heat from it is fuming up into the body. My guess is the tailpipe. If that were faulty wiring, youd see smoke pouring out of the trim panels and smell burnt wiring with that much damage. Even the taillight housing is melted.

Taking a closer look, there appears to be a tan wire passing under the sill plate, but nothing looks burnt. Just melted. Unless thats not a wire and its just the sill melted funny. And there appears to be a wire next to the taillight housing in that black wad to the left.

 

The tailpipe os really far from the body now and shouldnt cause issue anymore.

Is there a wiring harness over there?

The tail light/blinker/reverse light is still good too

 

So the tailpipe was closer? The taillight harness is behind the interior trim panel where the speaker is. There isnt anything under the sill plate unless you installed a trailer harness, or ran wires for a stereo under it.

 

I didn't. There's no words over there and the tail light harness is fine and the sub works. Just the 4 normal speakers do not.

Attached is what the exhaust used to be




It was pointing directly at the back of the bumper with nowhere to escape. it has been lowered and extended beyond the back of the bumper so it's no longer an issue but I just now need to figure out what's going on with the stereo because right around when everything got really hot is when it died

 

First off... glad to see you still rocking the XJ, hope all is well with life.

2. Who are "they" and what the hell were "they" thinking when "they" did that with your exhaust? I'd be pissed.

3. Check your wiring in that area.

 

Any shop that did that should refund you, or do repairs / provide parts on their dime. Start pulling off the plastic trim on that side and inspect everything.

 

They is my dad when we installed the bumper and I went to the bathroom. Came back to my pipe laying on the ground.

And I'll post photo updates to my way out of date build thread soon.

 

Could driver door worinf cause this? It died today. And the rear speakers give a little pop when power is sent to them

 

We figured it out. The amp got cooked in the head unit. Now in the process of doing research for a double DIN conversion