It sounds like that is not an option.

 

Do you have the electrical diagrams?
if not you can download them from here http://www.jagrepair.com/images/Auto...01999.25en.pdf

 

Call me Mr. Vegas, but I'd be willing to bet your hard earned money on a new battery. Lots of threads in this forum about how all sorts of bizarre electrical issues were caused by a marginal battery. A voltage reading at rest, unfortunately, doesn't mean a whole lot, so that's no proof your battery is good.

We do know your battery was subjected to an overload when the charging pack was hooked up in reverse. Consider the battery damage that would have happened if a plain conductor (such as a wrench) had bridged both terminals. Just with that alone, you'd have had a massive current overload inside the battery, with possible warped plates and all kinds of nasty chemical reactions. When the plates warp, conductive debris will slough off and collect in the bottom of each cell, causing further problems.

Now consider how you bridged the two terminals. A plain conductor can carry lots of current, but doesn't add any current flow to the equation. However, you used a turbocharged current accelerator (charger pack), so you'd have dramatically increased the damaging current flow zipping in a circle, smoking the inside of the battery. You had a series circuit going with two power sources and virtually no load to absorb it, so the battery will have been severely stressed. Remember, the voltage reading you took at rest tells us almost nothing, so don't rely on that.

With any luck, I bet the damage was confined to the internals of the battery. I'd certainly suggest swapping it out with a quality replacement. Even if it doesn't fix all of those faults, the existing battery is still highly suspect. I'd change that first and go from there.

 

Hello again JagKnitter,

I fear that advising someone they are out of their depth is difficult, may offend . . . and again, elicit no thanks. If so, I sincerely apologize in advance. I would take your car to a good "independent" garage (it may be a good auto electrician, not Jaguar dealer) as recommended by [JagV8]. Learning this stuff is a steep but not impossible curve, but IMHO, I sense you are overwhelmed.

(my final 2 cents)

Best wishes,
Ken

 

Well Ken, I certainly do appreciate your help. I don't know electrical things, but my husband does, he had the fuse box in the boot opened and checked wires for damage, and there was not any apparent to the keen eye. I plan on checking current level of battery volts before end of day.

I am disappointed how quickly the "Ok try this and report back" turned into" take to a garage"
I do help that the reason you are no longer wanting to put your "2 cents" in is not because I was lax on clicking the 'Thanks' button. I just found that today.

Norri,. Excellent wiring diagram, thank you for the share! I didn't have that one, I was working off of a "Service Training Course" book from 2/15/2002.
Since I've messed up a 2 day old (to me) vehicle, I am no longer allowed to be poking about in the electrical system and have not the $$ to take her to a garage.

 

Please keep in mind a battery voltage reading at rest is almost of no use. It might catch a totally failed battery, but isn't conclusive enough to say the battery is good, and that's what you need to absolutely, positively sure of. You can have the battery professionally tested, but not all tests are done the same way. So on a practical level, the easiest way to be sure is to get a new, high-quality battery.

These cars are über sensitive to battery condition. Not just the state of charge, but the overall condition, too. Age, abuse, number of discharge cycles, etc. I'm not out in left field to repeat my suggestion to get a new battery, especially since the existing one has already been subject to some severe abuse.

After replacing the battery, here are two simple tests to run:

With the engine at idle, now read the battery voltage. Set the meter to DC, range in the teens. Meter (+) lead on the battery's (+) post. Meter (-) lead on the battery's (-) post. Turn on headlights to help load the system. You should see approximately 13.5 volts DC. Any less and the alternator isn't charging adequately.

There's also a stronge chance the surge damaged a diode in the alternator. Take this reading directly at the alternator. Shut off the engine while making the connections. Set the meter to AC, range in the teens. That's not a typo, you will be checking for alternating current. Meter (+) lead on the fat output wire at the alternator. Meter (-) lead on the alternator case. Start the engine and let it idle. The reading must be under 0.5 VAC. Anything higher indicates a failed diode in the alternator. Adjust the meter range setting down as necessary to get the resolution needed to see 0.5 VAC. Take your initial reading on high range to prevent damage to your meter, and then adjust the range down.

 

Hey JagKnitter, not at all . . . but please don't regard my post as a "dummy spit". Can you imagine how long I spent deleting then re-editing my "2 cents" post to try not to offend? However, from the detail of several of your posts, I feared you were attempting to tackle your fire . . . with what increasingly looked like a can of petrol. I had no idea you had a knowledgeable hubby at hand (and that's NOT a put-down either) when I implied you were out of your depth.

I do believe you are getting sound advice, but I predict that a new battery (when yours is now holding a standing 13V) is not the next step I would adopt. That said, I DO agree with likelihood you have fried 1 or more diodes so the advice to check alternator appears a good next test.

Best wishes,
(wow! just found another 2 cents)
Ken

 

Hello all, this is Mr. jagknitter. Going back to basics... I did disconnect the positive terminal then used a test light between the positive BATTERY TERMINAL and the positive "CABLE". The light did light up so I then took a volt reading and found that the voltage was the same as if I checked it from + BATTERY TERMINAL to the - BATTERY TERMINAL. This leads me to believe that there is a dead short somewhere. As I removed each fuse one by one (and replacing after no change to test light), I discovered that when I removed the #25 cartridge fuse (boot fuse panel) the light was significantly less bright. This leads me to believe that the problem lies within this circuit. Please offer your advice based on this information.

 

By the way... the manual identifies this circuit as "PRIMARY JUNCTION BOX".
Thanks,
Mr. Jagknitter.

 

A meter would be better so you know exactly what is happening.
Fuse #25 feeds the primary junction box which is in the right hand footwell behind a panel, you could continue your process by pulling fuses there and see which one affects your light.

 

Dear Mr. JagKnitter,

I'm not quite sure I follow your troubleshooting tact. You seem to looking for a key-off drain on the battery, but I don't think that is the root cause of your problems.

The apparent key-off drain you've found may be perfectly normal:

1) Unless you've locked yourself in a closed trunk to run these tests, the trunk light is on. That is going to falsely indicate a major key-off battery drain.

2) Even without that, these cars take about 45 minutes for most of the electronics to go to sleep. Until then, many of the various electronic modules are drawing some current. This again will falsely indicate a problem.

Again, I'm not convinced that hunting for a key-off drain is of any use right now. Even if you had fried one or more electronic modules, these failures would likely manifest themselves as the modules simply not working. I'd say it's quite a long shot to fry a module in such a way that it creates a key-off drain.

I still strongly suggest a new battery. Over and over again on this forum, we've encountered cars with the same faults as you are experiencing. And most of the time, the fix was a new battery. These cars are known for this condition, so I'd certainly call that a pattern failure. Combine that with the knowledge that your battery was already of unknown vintage when you purchased the car, it already needed a jump start so its general condition (not just state of charge) was suspect, and then suffered horrendous abuse with the leads reversed.

If reluctant to spring for a new battery, can you swap one from another car for troubleshooting?

 

Can you get a wiring diagram and try and see whether the items that don't work now are linked to a common control module?

 

It's included with the free download workshop manual.

 

Can you read the codes? Then we might be able to point you in the right direction.

 

Any progress? This was an interesting scenario and I'm curious to hear of any resolution.