How to turn off jeep lights when doors are open

Hi all...I'm new to this forum. I just recently got a 94 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 4cyl. and have been cleaning it out. This Jeep needed a good vacuuming inside and some rust removal under the doors...which I was performing....when I noticed that the indoor lights began to get dimmer and dimmer. After I was finished with a major part...I decided to close the door and look up how to disable indoor lights. I can't seem to find much on them. Is there really anyway to disable the indoor lights from turning on when the doors are open? They seem to have drained my battery to the point of having to jumpstart it and drive it around to recharge it. I'm glad the battery was fairly new! If there are any modifications I can do like put a switch in...tell me how or send me a link please. I'm pretty good with electronics/computers so...I'm sure I could install a switch if I knew how. Thanks for your help!

compugeek said:

Hi all...I'm new to this forum. I just recently got a 94 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 4cyl. and have been cleaning it out. This Jeep needed a good vacuuming inside and some rust removal under the doors...which I was performing....when I noticed that the indoor lights began to get dimmer and dimmer. After I was finished with a major part...I decided to close the door and look up how to disable indoor lights. I can't seem to find much on them. Is there really anyway to disable the indoor lights from turning on when the doors are open? They seem to have drained my battery to the point of having to jumpstart it and drive it around to recharge it. I'm glad the battery was fairly new! If there are any modifications I can do like put a switch in...tell me how or send me a link please. I'm pretty good with electronics/computers so...I'm sure I could install a switch if I knew how. Thanks for your help!

On my 96 ZJ, I can just hit the dome light/switch at the rear cargo area (center light on the roof by the hatch - press it like the console reading lights). It turns on/off the dome light when you have the hatch or doors open.

Thanks!

AZFlyingDiver said:

On my 96 ZJ, I can just hit the dome light/switch at the rear cargo area (center light on the roof by the hatch - press it like the console reading lights). It turns on/off the dome light when you have the hatch or doors open.

I just went and tried it and it works! Thanks a lot! It didn't even say anything in the manual about it...imagine that. Now my battery won't have to drain down when cleaning the inside of the Jeep. Thank you very much....I owe you one.

I went and looked in the manual and found where it says it (a whole paragraph) about the tail gate light being the on/off switch for the rest of the interior lighting. It was out-of-place in my opinion...I was checking further on into the manual (near the part about the dimmer switch). That seems like a more logical place to put it....anyways....thanks for your help and responding so fast.

Thanks!

I'm a lurker here since I'm new to Jeep and can only learn. Not being able to turn the dome light in my '96 GC off has bugged me and I could not (and still cannot) find how to do it in the manual. Last week on the beach wanted to keep the lift gate open and could not. Did a serach and here's the answer in this very thread. Neat! Many thanks! :thumbsup: Steve

I figured out it worked for the rear hatch, but never thought it would work for side doors for too.. Go figure.. Now if there was just a way to keep interior light off completely .. Be able to open and close doors without interior light even coming on I would be even happier.

Thanks!

LOL...I'm going to install a switch near my light knob that will cut the power to the interior dome light circuit near the fuse box. I hate having the lights drain my battery everytime I go too extensively with the vacuum and carpet cleaner... . I'll release some details and pictures when I do it.

compugeek said:

LOL...I'm going to install a switch near my light knob that will cut the power to the interior dome light circuit near the fuse box. I hate having the lights drain my battery everytime I go too extensively with the vacuum and carpet cleaner... . I'll release some details and pictures when I do it.

Looking forward to it!

Thanks,

Lloyd

A zj with a 4-banger... that thing must be slow as ****!

Battery must have not been too new to be drained by just having the doors open while cleaning. Was this a 12 hour cleaning session or something? I have mine open and radio playing whenever i do any work or clean the jeep and never had this problem. (Nor with any other vehicle with a good battery)

I believe that my charging system is having a hard time pumping enough charge into the battery because of my stereo system..I will be getting a capacitor to take care of that. As far as the cleaning goes...I did have a bad battery when that happened...but I still don't understand why they didn't put a switch to turn off interior lights with door open. All cars and SUV's besides older Jeeps seem to have them. Why waste the battery if you don't need to.

My 97 automatically shuts off the interior lights after about 10 minutes if the doors are open. That may be a change since 94.

Nejeep said:

My 97 automatically shuts off the interior lights after about 10 minutes if the doors are open. That may be a change since 94.

Very interesting. My 97 does not. I wonder how that's controlled? Probably have to pay dealer to do it. :brickwall

-Joe- said:

Battery must have not been too new to be drained by just having the doors open while cleaning. Was this a 12 hour cleaning session or something? I have mine open and radio playing whenever i do any work or clean the jeep and never had this problem. (Nor with any other vehicle with a good battery)

I've seen many batteries go down and need jumped / charged to start while working on them in a shop for a few hours... and not because of old / weak batteries. My own ZJ will suck enough out of battery in about 4-5 hours to need a jump to start.. and battery is good enough to start engine at -30*.

So...while looking at the wiring diagrams...it seems that the dome and courtesy lamps are connected in parallel. This takes a lot of amperage from the battery...more so than when hooked in series. They probably designed it like this because if one goes out...the others will stay lit. I haven't had physics for a while...but I am pretty sure that is correct. The voltage (potential energy) stays the same, but the amount of amps that is currently needed is raised every time a new bulb is put in place in parallel. The resistance is calculated just for each individual bulb because they have direct connections to the positive and negative terminals. Basically, the water pipes (wires/voltage) size stays the same but the amount of water (electrons/amps) flowing through it will change depending on how much is connected to those pipes (the bulbs). That's where fuses come in. All that pressure from the added pumps (bulbs) create stress on the structure of the pipe (wire) and can cause it to explode (wires to burn). The fuses are rated for a certain amount and cut the connected when there is too much water (amps).
Does that seem right to everyone? I'm pretty sure that's about it for the electronics lesson for today...I'll paste a link to a picture on where a good place would be to put the switch. Later.

Yeah that sounds close enough. More bulbs in parallel = less equivalent resistance. Less resistance and same voltage = more current. You got it.

That's odd, my lights only shut off when I have the hatch open, if the doors are open, the lights will not shut off, even when I use the rear light switch.

That's the idea. The only time all interior lights go off is when only the hatch is open and no other doors are open. The rear hatch light is a switch and can turn them all on or all off if the other doors are closed. Like I said...I am installing a switch soon...(gotta find time)...and will link to my website that will have how to do it. I just got a switch from the auto store along with some descent guage wire. I really didn't calculate anything...but maybe I should...just to be on the safe side.

when i take my doors off i usually take the side fuse panel cover off and take out the #5 fuse.. thats for interior lights..

Light trouble

I'm having trouble with my lights coming on and going off while I'm driving. They stayed on when I got to work this morning and I had to pull the fuse. I hear a clicking when they come on or go off. Any ideas?

I also want to put a switch in mine. I'm always concerned about being on the beach and running my battery down.