With winter coming (already a few cold mornings) I figured I should fix my heater blower problem. My blower would only run on 1 and 4, so low or super high which kind of sucks. It is a common problem on 97-01 XJ's and TJ's and from what I have read, 90% of the time it is the blower motor resistor. A new resistor set me back $40 ( after military discount). To get to the resister I had to find it first, and once I lowered the glove box door I found it down and back against the inside firewall. I had to remove a small plastic panel where the passenger side courtesy light is ( 3 small bolts 2-8mm, 1-7mm). The resistor is held in by 2 -8mm bolts and simply the wires simply unplug. As soon as I pulled it out I saw why it didn't work. It was covered in a layer of nasty dust and the one side had corroded away
. I plugged the new one in, bolted it up and now all 4 speeds work.
The good thing is that I was able to do all this with the small tool kit I have up here in ME. For all the XJ and TJ guys you might want to pull your resistor out and wipe it off, just to make sure yours keeps working.
On another note, it has been 1500 miles since my last oil change ( only 16 days ago
) and it looks like I have not burned or dripped any oil
. Pretty good for an engine with almost 198K miles.