Greetings fun lovers of electrical problems! I have turn signals that don’t work. Let me set the stage: 78 Corvette, std V8. I replaced the rear tail lights with LED lights, both the outside (stop lights) and inside lights (backup lights). Yes the turn signals worked for the outside 2 lights as they should. Never hooked up the inside ones to the back up pigtails. Drove the car that way most of last year. I did have a problem with one of them, but while it was dim, it worked. Later found out the stem wasn’t seating properly in the socket on that light. My intention was to hook up the two inside lights to their respective right and left stop lights (outside). When I did that, I did one at a time, soldered each connection, connected the light and tested the lights, the brakes, the emergency flashers and the turn signals worked fine. Did the second one, again with the same procedure and the turn signals only failed the test. Did some research and determined I needed a flasher unit that handled more than 4 (origin capacity for stock flasher) lamps,  put that in and tested it and initially they didn’t work, but after I tried the emergency flashers, the turn signals worked. Drove the car several times and then on the way back from a car show, they stopped working last week.
All the light bulbs in all the socks around the cars outside work perfectly on running light or full lights. The emergency flashers work fine, and all bulbs that should flash, do. When I use the turn signal lever the lights on the dash work (either way) but don’t blink (no click from the relay) and the outside lights front and back, do light up but don’t flash. Replaced the new flasher, another new flasher, put the original back in and still nothing. Bought another new standard size flasher and new HD flasher (which is in there now) and none of them made a difference. Put a multimeter on the flashers and all of them are good. Generally I would say a ground or a short, but the lights work for the emergency light (by the way if I pull out the relay, the emergency lights don’t work - I was led to believe there’s a relay for the emergency lights under the console somewhere). I also jiggled the break switch (as that’s in the circuit) and it didn’t make any difference).
Anyway anyone have any thoughts? I've looked through this forum and tried several things, but nothing is quite like mine.

|UPDATED|2/5/2015 2:57:16 PM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

What kind of flashers are you using? With the LEDs, you have to use an electronic flasher...a regular. mechanical type flasher will not work. The lights will light up, but there's just not enough resistance in the circuit with LEDs to heat the element in a normal flasher to make it work.
Other than that, I can't think of anything else that would cause them to come on, but not flash, other than possibly a loose/corroded ground, since you did say one of them was dim.


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Joel Adams
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Hey Apple, thanks for the reply. I believe I am using an electronic type, here's the description

"The EL12 from Tridon is an electromechanical turn signal flasher that operates at 12V and features 2 terminals. This type of turn signal flasher uses electromagnetism to operate. It was developed to directly replace corresponding 2 terminal thermal turn signal flashers (536, 552, 577). This flasher has a design life up to 400 hours."

It handles up to 10 lamps and was called HD type.

If that's not what you're referring to, let me know a specific type you may know of to use, it would be greatly appreciated.

The dim problem was fixed because the "newer" pigtails" don't allow completely for offset tit's (high/low voltage) on the side and I had to carve out some of the slot to allow me to twist the connector into place.

Thanks,
Milt

Apple, do you think the problem might be in the steering column? Right now I also have a horn issue that I'm sure is in the column (I've bypassed the column wire and got the horn to beep). The signal arm seems to work just fine, although on a left turn, unless it's sharp it doesn't turn off. That seems to be my court of last resort on this.

Milt

This tells us the t-sig switch, and the wiring to the lamps are all good. They worked until you added the other lamps. Here's the issue....the EL12 flasher will NOT work with that set-up...btdt...you need to get a different flasher to work with the number of lamps you have. I bet if you disconnect the inner two lamps on the rear, the sigs will work again with the EL12, but....you want all four, so.....get a CF12ANL-01 flasher. They have been proven to work great.  And, it's a plug and play for your two terminal connection. Not normally stocked at most parts houses, but they are available on-line.

An alternative is the Tridon EP34, but it will need to have the "E" terminal grounded to work, which isn't that hard to take care of. This one IS available at just about any parts house.

hth 


dam spelchek....


|UPDATED|2/6/2015 10:38:20 AM (AZT)|/UPDATED|


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Joel Adams
C3VR Lifetime Member #56    
My Link


(click for Texas-sized view!)             NCRS

"Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comforting to cry in a CORVETTE than in a Kia"

Thanks, I'll try that one, or the alternative.

just an FYI ; When I disconnected the inside (New) lamps, it still didn't work: I thought the same thing.
Also they (all 4) did work for awhile with this particular flasher then quit. bought a new one and no luck.

Thanks,
Milt

Apple...Well I got the CF12ANL-01 flasher and unfortunately it didn't make any difference. Turn signal lights come on but don't blink - emergency flashers work fine. Now that I have 4 or 5 different flashers I think I'll open up a Auto Parts store! LOL (Hey I got to find some humor in this or I'll scream!).
Next stop on this adventure is the connector at the bottom of the steering column and then inside the column if that fails; unless you or someone out there has another suggestion......


|UPDATED|2/12/2015 3:38:05 PM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

Well for those interested the lights are now working, and both are coordinated on each side. It certainly was an adventure  to get it fixed! First, when you put on LED lights you need a resistor to help the system realize there are lights drawing power (LED's don't draw enough to set off the relays inside the flasher) took a bit of digging to figure that out. As it turns out, while mine worked for awhile, in reality I was damaging something in that particular circuit (more later). When I found this out I put on a resistor to each of the tail lights (4) but that didn't work. After a bunch of trial and error I took the whole thing apart and went back to regular bulbs and two lights and found that my turn signals still didn't work, I had also tried a couple of other flasher units as suggested here which didn't work either. Even though the emergency flashers worked I felt I needed to check on the "second" flasher (considered the emergency flasher) in the console. Well guess what it's not there, as it turns out it's BEHIND the glove compartment. (I'd love to have about 10mins and a black jack with the engineers that designed this electrical system!!). Anyway I apparently blew this one out, as mentioned earlier. Fixed that and only put one resistor per side and things are working just fine now! Whew!! Thanks for the help and suggestions from this forum. (Now on to the horn that doesn't work!)

Glad ya got them working.
What kind/brand of LEDs do you have? Are they replacement bulbs designed to replace 1157 bulbs, or are the more generic type bulbs? I know some LEDs do require resistors to work properly, but afaik, MOST replacement, plug & play LEDs have them built in.


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Joel Adams
C3VR Lifetime Member #56    
My Link


(click for Texas-sized view!)             NCRS

"Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comforting to cry in a CORVETTE than in a Kia"