I dont fail for that. Hell I never even check it? That's more of a luxury item than safety. Half of my old XJs never even had them

 

I was blowing my interior light/brake/radio fuse. Its blown about three times thus far. It hasn't done it in a few months, but I haven't really been going into the cargo with the key in either. I thought it was the loose under hood light bouncing around blowing the fuse. Since removing the light, it hasn't happened... but again, haven't been opening the lift gate either.

Haven't been stopped so far for the defrost not working. I normally scrape the **** out of all the ice and crank my heat so it looks like it's working.

 

Fixed it...

Was quite a pain. I only had three hours to do it, over the span of three days. Really just follow the video posted. I didn't snap pics for a write up because it was cold, and I was focused on just getting it done. In theory, it was easy.

My third brake light, rear defrost, and back dome light were out. After checking fuses and replacing bulbs, the problem remained. This is what I did...

- Open rear hatch.
- Look to left, between hatch and body of XJ, a rubber boot. Identical boot will be on your right as well. However you'll need to access the left boot.
- Remove interior hatch panel. Remove screws around panel. On interior handle, remove plastic squares, remove bolts with a semi large torx driver. Pull panel down.
- With panel removed, above rear window, and over left rubber boot you'll see a square plastic black outlet. There will be several wires coming out as well as three square adaptors.
- Remove the two bolts on either side of this outlet. Pull the outlet out, and disconnect the adaptors.
- Move into the cargo area of your XJ.
- Facing out, look up and remove the rear, upper, interior trim panel. You may want to remove your spare tire to get at the last screw.
- Here you will see the underside of our specific rubber boot, as well as the wire clusters running out of it, into the interior of your XJ, and under the roof liner.
- These wires run down the length of the passenger side, rear panel, located behind your spare tire. At this point you may remove that panel and the tire rack located on the floor, held by four bolts.
- Behind this panel you will find a junction box. The adaptors you will need to remove will be the middle square black adapter, and the large white middle adapter.
- At this point you may attempt to feed the wire up through the frame and out from under your roof liner, despite however impossible it may seem to actually refeed them back through.
- Or you can do what I did... Sever the wire cluster at the roof liner, grab the rubber boot by the throat and pull the wires out like a stringy spinal column, then drag it inside because its 29*f out, and you've wiped your running nose on your sleeve at least 18 times by now.
- When removing the wires pull them up from the bottom of the rubber boot first, then pull the inside, hatch wires out last... CAUTION, there will be a hidden adapter inside the frame of your hatch, this is for your third brake light. Also you may need a flathead driver to persuade the rubber boot out.
- After you bring the wire cluster inside, trace all the wires looking for breaks, cracks, or plain broken wires. Replace or repair as needed. I used shrink tube for the small wires, and large wire crimps for the defrost wires. You will also need these materials if you've decided to cut your wires. Reassembly is easy, all the wires are color coded.
- Go back out and reassemble in reverse order.

My defrost wires were completely cut, several others were cracked and cut.

You will need: wire strippers, small shrink tube about 14 gauge, 10 - 12 gauge wire crimps, a lighter, socket and driver set, electrical tape. My back dome light still does not come on when the hatch is open. It will only come on when the other doors are open. Im guessing there's a faulty switch somewhere around the hatch, just cant find it.

Sorry for typos. Done on tablet.