1992 xjs convertible

I don't drive that often so I disconnect battery in between drives. Usually I leave the trunk and doors unlocked.

The trunk lock is broken. That is, the key doesn't "catch" the lock when I rotate it.

This time I locked the trunk (via the door lock, which locks the trunk also) while the trunk was open and the battery was still connected.

Then I disconnected the battery (in the trunk) and shut the trunk.

Now I am locked out of the trunk, and battery is disconnected.

Car door lock requires power to also unlock the trunk.

Any suggestions?

 

Check out JagtechOhio post

"You can't get there from the inside. You have to remove the rear number plate and release the boot latch with a stiff wire or thin rod from the lower left mounting hole with the plate removed. It will be of great benefit if you can look at the latch on another car, so you can see the point you are aiming for: it's a bit of a trial and error procedure."

Cheers

 

If you can get into the car get a cigarette(or power plug as we now refer to it as) plug with leads,put alligator clamps onto the leads and clamp the leads onto another 12v battery.Plug it in.The power plug is fused for 10amp and the lock is less than that,just don't power everything else up while you are getting juice thru the power outlet.Hope that work for you.Let us know how it works out.

 

Awesome. I'm gonna try to power through the cigarette lighter first, since it sounds less involved.

I am gonna go ahead and order the service manual anyway, for other repairs. If the lighter trick doesn't work, hopefully the manual will give me a clue as to where I should be aiming when I go in through the license plate mounting hole.

Thanks a lot!

 

Mccalist, you can also pop the hood and there should be two terminals there for jumpstarting the car. You simply pull a second vehicle up to your XJS and then connect up the jumper cables. From there, you have enough power to do just about anything you want. You could in theory start up the car. Granted, I would not recommend it as the battery is there to absorb any electrical spikes and with it disconnected, you risk damaging the electronic components of your car.

 

Okay. I think my cig. lighter is relayed so that won't work.

I did some more research in this forum on Thermo's advice to find the terminal under the bonnet/hood.
I am not sure where it is on my car.

Here is a pic of the fuses on the driver side under the bonnet/hood. Some forum members have said that the terminal is here on their cars:





Here is a pic to the rear of these fuses (with a connector that has a white band, this connector looks like it's grounded.):



Here is a close-up just to the front of the fuses:



Some have said the terminal is near the bonnet/hood latch. Here is a pic of this area (note the L-shaped black plug at top-center of pic, which has just a couple of small gauge wires attached to it):


Here is another angle of this area near the bonnet/hood latch (with an exposed metal stud shown to the right of the black, L-shaped plug. This exposed stud has a whole bunch of electrical connections coming out from a similar, but damaged black L-shaped plug):


Where should I make the positive connection?

 

Mccalist, normally there is what would appear to be a battery post only under a red plastic cover. With the age of your car, the cover may or may not be there. From the pictures that you included, I did not notice the post I am talking about. IT should be right out in the open, one of the highest things in the engine bay.

If you can not find it, then I will tell you how to remove one of the relays and what pin to connect up a wire to so you can get into the electrical system that way.

There is more than one way to skin this cat. Lucky for you I know most of them.

 

You'll have to get down and dirty, but using a start-pack or another battery with jump-leads, you can power-up the car from underneath by putting the positive on the starter-motor main terminal and the neg to a suitably point on the chassis/body.

 

I forgot to say this earlier but there was a mechanic who said that if the battery was unhooked there would be no way to provide power b/c the circuit is broken. You guys know the battery is unhooked right? (just want to be sure.)

So I bought two sets of alligator clips. Fried the first set hooking a battery (from motorcycle; 12V) up to the exposed stud shown above on the right, and to a ground. This means the stud is grounded too, right? (I guess this makes sense, since it is connected directly to the firewall.) I didn't try the left one, since it looks connected to the firewall just like the exposed one on the right. I have one set of clips left.

I don't know how to get to the starter. I thought of the alternator too but I looked for the "+" terminal and couldn't see it - probably couldn't reach it anyway.

I would be interested in going in through one of the relays.

Also it seems like one time on a different car I supplied power through the fuse box. Is this possible?

Thanks again for all help.

 

Sorry for the double post, but I just found two more terminals in the engine bay, on the firewall.

Each is about 4 inches under one of the two black diagonal brackets shown at the top of this photo:


Under the bracket on the right, there is a black L-shaped boot:


Under the left bracket, there is another one of these L-shaped boots. I pulled this one off (see the exposed gold-colored nut and bolt):



Is this what they look like on a 92 xjs? These don't look like normal battery terminals.

 

Mccalist, the studs that you are showing, those are grounding studs. So, don't connect the positive to that stud or you will have lots of arcs and sparks (as you have already found out).

Yes, I do understand that the battery is disconnected in the rear of the car. But, at the same time, if you can add a second battery to the circuit, that first battery doesn't matter.

Now, for the relays in question. I want you to go to the relays located on the drivers side fender well (the 6 shown in the first 2 pics you posted). Remove one of the relays. Now, look on the relay. You should see some numbers on the relay (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). I want you to match up the "3" post to the spot where the relay was pulled from. Now, using your motor cycle battery, connect the ground to any metal part of the body. Now, stick a small piece of wire into the "3" slot and then connect your alligator clip to that piece of wire. This should put power into the car. Don't try to start the car, do just enough to get the trunk open. From there, you can connect up the normal battery and be back in business.

If you pulled the row of relays up, you should see a fairly heavy gauge wire running to that strip. That would also be another viable point that you can connect the positive of the motorcycle battery to. But, the wire trick is much easier to do.

 

It's fixed.

Thank you all for the help!

For future reference, I couldn't identify terminal 3 on the relay, so I took a chance on the exposed gold-colored bolt shown with the arrow above. This is a positive terminal.

Just hooked that up to the battery and voila.

Thanks again.