Blinkers and Horn issues

[4aThrill]

Been having some issues with the blinkers and horn. 

Tested the horns with the Battery they work, all wiring is good, Pushing on horn pad nothing, tested the switch on the column with a screw driver and nothing, no shock or noise.   All grounds cleaned, electrical grease on all connections.     
                                                                         
A: Hazard lights are on, the rear lights are flash only and the driver front park light is on but not flashing, the passenger park light is off. 

B: I turn on park lights and or headlights, the left blinker lights up in the dash cluster. Rear lights are on and the passenger park light is on, driver side park light is off. 

C: Car is started to test the blinkers: they don't blink just soild(like pushing on the break) when moving the blinker lever back and fourth.   

I have gone through the other threads to find something like this, but have not ran across anything yet.  I have checked all grounds and all bulbs, re greased connections, I didn't try pressing on the brake pedal to see if there's a difference.  I'm thinking maybe the blinker switch finally went since there not working properly and I have no horn. Thoughts

[mopar0166]

Id start by looking at your turn signal switch, followed by the connection coming from the colmn. 

this is assuming you have a stock harness and no leds bulbs as well. 


But to me its could one or more ,  turn signal switch, bad ground , flasher bad

[4aThrill]

Yes Stock harness and just a few LED bulbs

[rebby]

How many LEDs and where?

I just converted the entire car (less hood blinkers, radio, and key light) over to LEDs. For the blinkers I needed to swap out my blinker flasher to a No Load Flasher after swapping out just a few bulbs. I went with one from CEC Industries. This flasher was just sitting under the dash on the driver's side between the steering column and the vent (A/C car).

The 4-way emergency flasher was another animal. I was still using the factory emergency flasher which is located just to the passenger side of the steering column. Unlike the blinker flasher, this one actually sat in a little retainer on the back of the dash. I didn't need to swap this one out until I changed out my last blinker (passenger front FWIW). Apparently the load generated by the LEDs, the hood blinkers (still Edison bulbs), and that final 1157 were enough to get that flasher to function. I did end up swapping out the factory flasher with the same CEC unit that I mentioned above.

There are a few "gotchas" with the new flasher units. The first is pretty obvious, unlike the factory units, these need to be grounded to function. Simply ground the black pigtail wire that is hanging off the flasher unit. Additionally, with these flashers polarity matters (like LEDs, go figure). I found that BOTH of my flasher units needed to be wired exactly opposite of how they were wired from the factory. You can accomplish this by fabricating a few jumper wires to reverse the harness or, for an even cleaner look, simply flip the terminals on your factory connector. There are a few outlets who also sell the same flasher with a housing that does this for you, I believe Classic Industries is one.

That should get you started on your blinker issue.

As for your horn... All that the horn pad really does is complete a ground circuit to your horn relay. Personally, I'd start at the horns (which you already did), then move back one step at a time and manually ground the switch wire. If grounding out your relay sounds the horns, your relay is good. If grounding out at the bulkhead connector sounds your horn, than your wiring up to this point is good. Keep working your way back from there. If it were me, I'd test the horn button on the steering wheel itself by checking for continuity between the horn out wire on the harness and ground before I'd tear into the steering column. It's not difficult just more work than is (hopefully) necessary.

Look at a wiring diagram for some help with part of the process.


Hopefully it's the flashers causing an issue with your blinkers. If not, it could be related to the horn since they all work through that steering column harness. You may just need to replace something in that chain. When I went through this with my car, I didn't mess around. I replaced the switch and the harness when I had it all torn apart. I had no desire to do that more than absolutely necessary.

[4aThrill]

There are LEDs only in the dash cluster, no where else. I will be back in town the first weekend of June and will be working on those issues and some others too. Thankx for your help I will keep you all updated.

[rebby]

There are LEDs only in the dash cluster, no where else. I will be back in town the first weekend of June and will be working on those issues and some others too. Thankx for your help I will keep you all updated.

With only LEDs in the dash cluster, you should have plenty of load to run your flashers. Hmm... Keep us updated.

[4aThrill]

update, so the white wire that looked tan wasn't connected to the brake pedal switch, due to my old pictures of before I disassembled everything in 2007.  In my pictures the white wire was never hooked up, instead there was a black wire that I connected to another wire only thing is I don't know what wire it was. can't find it in my pics of this connection I connected the white wire to the brake switch still no go.  I didn't really get that much time to trouble shoot this weekend. had an issue with the AC unit so I was fixing that and replacing the heater element in the dryer, but I did get offered another job(AC job) maybe look more into that after I retire in five years knock on wood.  still looking through my pics.  probably just gonna pick up afew more things at Carlisle no shipping on that. ill keep you all posted.

[Brock Lee]

Also be sure you have a correctly installed ground strap for the column.

[nascarxx29]

Brake light switch the one white wire and a double pink wire.Also bad steering column swich willcause you no brake lights .but check grounds connection bulbs etc to narrow it down

[4aThrill]

Update, so put a blinker harness in, changed out the headlight switch, checked and unconnected the upgrades(alt to ammeter and headlight relay) still no change. Also checked and rechecked all grounds. Removed some light bulbs too see if there was a change, nope no change. Any thoughts. Will be getting new fuse's second time .

[4aThrill]

Just changed out the LED light bulbs in the dash still the same. I guess im going from from to back again rechecking grounds. Only thing I can think of for now.

[Nacho-RT74]

OK, I have read couple of times this thread, same as the PMs you sent me, and I must confess is being hard to tell what to do or what you did correctly. All I can say is how must work every system then you take your own conclusions

Horn system:

Its ground triggered from steering column... Black wire on turning switch harness. It gets the horn relay mounted on fuse box. The relay gets a batt source through a violet wire from fuse box. Once is triggered from horn button ( ground triggered and constant positive ), it feeds the green traced red wire up to bulkhead conector on forward lighting harness with a positive source. Horns are chassis grounded. Then the horns HORN.

Hazzard lights

Gets the power from the hazzard flasher, located on steering column brackets area. The Flasher gets a pink wire from a constant batt source. Keeps being Pink up to steering column ( turning switch harness ). Untill this point, with hazzards off, this wire keeps hot/energized.

When you turn on Hazzards, the turning switch on column becomes on a junction what spreads out this flasher source to all 4 corners. Once the load gets the bulbs, heats the bimetallic into flasher, cuting out the power to the steering column switch. Bimetallic cools off and feeds back the bulbs, untill heats and is cut off again.. and goes on... this is how they blink.

The 4 corners wires are, Dark Green, Light green, Brown and tan. Darkers are to rear. Lighters are to front and pilot lights on cluster. Greens are one side, brown/tan are the other side

Since the flasher needs to get a load to work and leds uses to get a minimal load, this is the reason why regular led bulbs doesn't work on our cars. ALTHOUGH pilot lights is not a problem.

[Nacho-RT74]

How the steering column switch works?

steering column switch is kinda a Matrix which selects which input goes to what output according with your selection.

The switch gets 3 inputs.

Brakes light throught a white wire

Hazzard flasher throught the explained pink wire

Turning flasher throught the Red wire ( which the same as hazzard previouslly exposed gets a hot wire allways when in RUN or ACC )

In rest position, the only input linked to any output is the brake lights ( white ) to the rear corner wires ( Dark Green and Brown ) getting you normally on brakes lights.

when setting one side turning, the red wire gets linked to one side ( dark green and light green ) or the other ( Brown and Tan ) this loads makes turning the flasher to work, located around ashtray area, like the hazzard previouslly exposed. While you set, lets say to the Brown and tan side to the turning flasher wire, red, the other side is not... BUT the rear, dark green, keeps linked to the brake wire, white.... and backwards

When setting hazzards... all inputs are cut to set the outputs JUST to the 4 corners like previouslly exposed.

I hope all this write up will help a bit to understand the system

[Nacho-RT74]

Now... if some of the lights on the blinking system ( turning or hazzards ) are staying on there is just one thing to check! a damaged flasher.

A bad ground on them could make them stay on, just when you set on the parking lights. A damaged turning switch will never do any of these failures. A damaged turning switch or related parts ( plug, wires, terminals ) could make not to work any or some of these lights system

A damaged Flasher can also never to turn on the corners lights. You can check for this just jumping between both flasher terminasl to check if blinkers turn on... not blink, just turn on. This bypasses the flasher, but not the rest of the wiring and switch system, just for check for good conditions of them.

Of course, if you have let's say, both brake lights, but just one of the blinkers function ( either or both, hazzard or turning ), it means the wiring is good, but not the tunring switch, for whatever reason. Applies the same tu front lights. If you have let's say, hazzards in front, but not one of the turning lights, it means wiring is good, but not the switch ( once confirmed flashers are not the culprit )


Then also, a damaged turning flasher makes work BOTH sides. If you have one turning light working but not the other, definitelly IS NOT the flasher.

Same applies to the hazzard flasher. It feeds ALL or ANY of the hazzard signals, not partial.

Any partial malfunction is usually coming from turning switch, wiring or terminals/plugs.

I must confess I NEVER have had a turning switch damage, just replaced mine once becauise got a cheap NOS piece and the horn bearing to the orn ring track on mine was becoming worn. However it was still working nice.

[Nacho-RT74]

Headlights.

It gets its source straight from the main splice coming from alt wire into the underdash harness. Its a thick black wire getting into the lights switch. Once ON, this source becomes into a light green wire up to floor dimmer switch, then becomes on Violet for low beams, and red for High beams... pretty much straight to the headlights. Nothing more

Parking lights

this source is taken from a different source but coming from fuse block ( can't recall the color now ). Gets in to the switch and leaves with a black traced yellow wire. It spreads out for all the front parking lights, sidemarkers and rear parking lights up to the body wire harness rear  harness ( into a black wire on this )

Dimmer function

It also spliced from the parking lights source inside the switch but coming out in a different color, tan as far I recall. This splice feeds the rheostat, and this is the source for the described tan wire. This wire runs up to the fuse block, gets a fuse and becomes into an orange wire, which somewhere into the dash harness gets a large splice to feed all the dimming system ( radio face, shifter, cluster, ashtray light, acc switch lettering, AC control switch face ).

As you can see, the dimming lighting is at the end coming through two fuses... one large capacity, same than feeds parking lightin, then a diff one, smaller capacity, just for this system.

DOME light ( and relates... map light, courtesy light )

not an input wire, BUT chassis grounded, which whne dimmer wheel is completelly turn on, push a tab to grounds an output wire, yellow color, to the ground tunrning on these lights ( this lighst are contant positive sourced, and triggered by ground )

I can explain later for more if needed

[4aThrill]

Will be back home in a few weeks, and give you all an update on the progress. Thankx Nacho-RT74 for your help.

[4aThrill]

Update, so after checking the rear light sockets making sure that each one had a connection and functioned up and down. Found one that needed some work, fixed that but still no change, moved to the park light sockets passenger side was frozen/no movement once the light bulb was free unfroze the socket, replaced light bulb and Walla. Blinkers, flashers work. Still working on the horn issue, thinking of just having a fog horn on hand for a secondary option.   

[4aThrill]

Well I spoke too soon  , the hazards work, the blinkers work except for the driver side they blink twice then just stay on. still the same green light is on in the dash with the headlights on. So gonna drop the car off at the upholstery shop so they can adjust the windows and some other items that are kicking my butt, and then carry on with this issue. so come summer I'm not running around with head off trying to get things done.

[4aThrill]

Update  

left side park light with the light bulb in causes the following issues
-no left blinkers
-no left park lights
-turn signal light on in dash (left side see attachment)

if I take out the light bulb in left park light and dash left light is off, but no blinkers.  also noticed if I function the blinker switch down the light goes out on the dash with the park lights on no blinkers on.


Things that I have done to solve the issue.
-cleaned out all the sockets of the rear and the front park lights corrosion free.
-cleaned all grounds from paint, primer, plate
-new turn signal Harness
-new headlight switch
-new horn relay
-new hazards relay
-license plate light wasn't working so stripe a wire and wrapped it around it and now the light works when the park lights come on.
-reconnected the three switches disabling the car incase someone tries too you know.
-Alt upgrade to ammeter has been disconnected
-rechecked rear/harness lights for cracking noise etc
-tired a different park light
-new forward light harness (this past year)
-put in a new dash harness( just did this last weekend/ while still in car/ had a bad electric deal about 4 years ago first start up figured I missed something(bad limiter)
-Trunk light disconnected
-Blower motor disconnected
-Reinstalled each fuse master block

moving forward little more today, no front left park light, but left blinkers come on but no blink blink.  the center socket in the R/T & 500 tail light housings left
side was loose, tightened her up. maybe just manual shift the blinkers just on the left side, thanks for the help still working on this issue and some other ones too.