So after a bit of research, I found that 97+ Cherokee's have their windshield washer reservoirs located in the driver's side front fender. I have a 96, and apparently Chrysler knew they were going to convert over, and stamped the engine bay to accept the fiiller neck. I want to install one due to engine bay modifications, and have a few concerns.

Are the level sensors compatible between the years? Has anyone done this before, and has a thread started on it with pictures? I'm not too concerned with how to do it because I'm sure between mounting it, wiring it, and running the tubing, it's a pretty straightforward modification due to it all being factory parts. I'm mainly curious about the level sensor. My stock one currently works flawlessly (I know a lot of XJ owners run into problems) and would like to retain the dash light.

 

Please be aware that I have no first hand knowledge about this.
So awhile back I come to find out something I did not know.
Do you know that in a '96 RHD XJ the reservoir is the fender?
So looking up the sensor in my '94 to '96 parts catalog we find this.
See what I highlighted.

Looking it up in my '00 parts catalog we see this. Again see what I highlighted.

Same part number.
I used to own a '96 but for the life of me can't remember where the washer reservoir was.
Where is it anyway?
Now you have no problem with the wiring, running the hoses for it, etc.
But I do wonder a couple things that I can't answer.
Are the connectors the same for both the LHD and RHD '96?
Also could there be something different in the cluster for that warning light between a LHD and RHD '96?
Cause for a LHD '96 I think the part number is 4798630. Which you could look up in that first screen shot.
But on the surface I am thinking it would work.
Operative word being "think". LOL.

 

Wow I never thought how much different a RHD wold be. And no, I did not know that. But that's a lot of useful information you provided! The reservoir on the 96 is located on the passenger side right in the corner of the engine bay next to the firewall. As far as your other questions, I also do not know the answer to them. I would love to know the washer level sensor compatibility with all Jeep models and years.

 

Thinking about it a little more here is what I would try if I were trying to do this.
I am betting that I could pick up a '97 and up washer reservoir with the 2 pumps and sensor pretty cheap from the boneyard.
I would disconnect the harness from the sensor on the '96.
See if you could plug it into the '97 and up sensor. Without installing it. Just plug it in over on the passenger side where the washer reservoir is in your '96.
Maybe throw some water in there. See what happens. Then empty it out. See what happens.
If it works you are part of the way there. If not well...... LOL.

 

Thank you! Yeah I plan on going to a local junk yard where I know there are both -96 and 97+ cherokees there, and just test fitting everything. Ill probably bring a battery to test out the electricals, but that is good advice! 😁

 

95 RHD also has the reservoir in the wing. The more you know.

I haven't actually seen the level sensor but all it does is trigger a light so I cannot see any reason why it would act any differently on the different bottle types. They may have different part numbers simply because they fit differently in their respective bottles.

Looking at the wiring diagrams they did change how the light was triggered, in the pre 97 power came to the switch then to the dash light, post 97 it came from the dash light and grounded through the switch. Either way the switch completes the circuit when the level is low.

 

Its good to know the switches are the same!

 

Physically different but likely electrically operate the same.

 

So today I jumped right into it. I took out the old washer reservoir and compared it to one I pulled from the junkyard yesterday. The switches are similar, but slightly different. And the pumps are the same except the way they attach. I called and had some put on order first thing.


I labeled the hoses to stay organized.


I labeled the electrical connectors too.


And so the fun begins. I started pulling the corrosponding wire out of the loom since im relocating the reservoir to the other side. Th photo is not all too clear, but the blue wire with the white stripe is included inside of a heatshrink that is spliced and pigtailed from the factory. All I did was just turn it around180° at that point, and extended the wire. Unfortunately I couldnt locally find the same color coded wire, so I ended up with solid blue of the same gauge.


Here you can see where I soldered and added heatshrink tubing to the extention. You can also see I am pulling the windshield washer hose out of the main wiring harness. The rubber was in decent shape, but I do not understand why Chrystler designed it like this.


Slowly I am pulling the wire back. At this point, the wires go through the firewall to the switch. From here on, I am not pulling the wires out of the harness, but I'm adding them in.


For when I have to work on this later, or if I sell my jeep and the next owner has to figure out what I did to it, I bundled the wires together and labeled them. This small loom was then incorporated back into the main harness.


Slowly getting there!


At the header panel plug is where I detached this system from the rest of the harness.


After I taped the wires together, the corrugated tubing went back on, then electrical tape was applied to the whole length to make it resistant to the elements.


I added friction tape at the joints, just like factory. The factory wiring harness had something more stickier and thicker, almost like a waterproof sealant tape. This is what I had available locally.


The washer hose was added back ontop of the harness (I may relocate this) and it was routed the same as the harness.

I plan on taking the fender off tomorrow after the pumps get delivered to the parts store. All I have left to do is clean the junkyard reservoir, install the pump into it, splice the electrical connectors back in, and lengthen the hoses. In theory, it should work just as stock, unless if I jacked something up in the process. Opening up the main wiring harness was pretty difficult to decide to do, because it is my daily driver and my only vehicle, but honestly, this mod is pretty straight forward.

Let me know what you guys think!

 

Think you will have to remove the fender to get the reservoir in?
Wasn't really paying attention when I did the pumps in my '00.
I think if I were to remove the inner fender I would have a clean shot at it.
When I did the pumps I just removed enough bolts and body plugs to shove the inner fender out of the way.
Also no idea how the inner fender on a '96 might differ from an '00 so.....

 

Honestly, it could all probably be done through the inner fender. I'll probably have to take the tire off to get it in there. And then I'll still have to route the wiring and hoses, so im just going to pull the fender to make it easier.

 

I think you should be able to do that.

btw, for a RHD '96, (like my 3), I think you will find the '95 FSM is correct for every procedure and electrical matter, except the engine bay ,and OBDII wiring, which s covered by the '97 FSM

(there is in fact a '96 FSM, which as far as I know was only available in printed form, I have a copy of the Electrical section, which was scanned by another owner from the dealer many years ago)

 

Nice job with the wiring!

 

Okay, so today started off with picking up the new pumps, and a few odds and ends.


Firat thing is did was pull the whole header panel and fender off.



I used a double barb end fitting and factory style pressure hose clamps to lengthen the front sprayer line. Sorry I didn't take photos, but you can also see the new tank is in. It's pretty simple though


Rerouting it from the passenger side over to rhe driver side means I only had to extend it like less than a foot


The rear washer line was extended the same way.


I could have routed it similarly to the front sprayer, but this way seemed to flow better.


I ran it straight by the passenger side fender,


Under the battery tray back up parallel to the coolant overflow line,


Around the radiator cap, and then finally out the same hole as the front sprayer hose and electrical connections. I bought a total of ten feet of hose, and used like nine and a half. (and no, I'm not worried about the heat from the cooling system)


Here is the wiring. Because the pumps are in the fender, a lot of times the 97+ pumps will get rusty and prematurely fail. I made sure to protect these electrical connections as best as possible. I soldered and crimped on female spade connectors, and heatshrunk tubing over it.

Pulling the wires from the passenger side actually gave me too much wire and I had to cut it back like six inches or so, apart from the blue and white stripe wire that I had to double back and extend because it was pigtailed from the factory along, with the solid black ground.

Unfortunately, I also had to get rid of the one waterproof electrical connectors and I was given both the same pump for the front and back. For the front pump, they included a waterproof connector that plugs into the stock wiring, but it connected to the pump with the spade connectors. I had to cut the factory connector off in order to pull it from the main wiring harness, and wasn't about to attach it back on, just to pug it in, just for it to be spade connectors 🤣 so that's the reason why I deleted it and ran the spades directly off the wire.


After everything was electrically proper and working, I treated it the same as the rest of the harness, like before. I also put labels on as much of it as I could. I also drew a schmeatic of how it was wired (which is no different that stock) simply for record keeping purposes if I ever need to dive back into it, or if I end up selling my jeep. Please dont ask for my schematic, it's the same as the one in the field service manual, but with notes of how I routed it.


Final product.

What you just read, was a complete instruction on how to install a 97+ windshield washer reservoir into a 1996 Jeep XJ. I believe Renix years and Comanche's will be slightly different. In general, and I'm also not sure when they aterted stamping the inner fender to accept the filler neck and attachment point. That particular part my be exclusive to 96 right before the transition. (Someone please comment that if you have any info)

Comment what you think of this! Let me know what I should have done differently, or how I can improve giving you guys better content! As always, I love to hear feedback from the community.

 

The only thing I can suggest is dousing both pumps in Fluid Film before you put everything back together.
In the '97 and up they get pretty crusty over time.
When my rear pump gave out I replaced both and did that.
Hey maybe it will help them last that much longer. LOL.