I need a few ideas on where to look for a problem. If you can think of a specific cause for this please do tell.

By the way, the hazard lights all blink perfectly, including the interior marker arrows.

The problem is, the interior green marker arrows illuminate and stay lit when the headlight switch is moved to both parking lights and headlights. When this happens, the exterior signals do not illuminate...just the interior indicators. They both light up and stay lit.

This happens when the engine is both on and off. Like I said, the hazards blink properly, but the headlight switch illuminates the arrows inside.

Now, the other part of the problem is that the signals won't flash when the stalk is used. If I signal right, the right signal lights, including the indicators, all light and stay lit. Same for left.

I have some resistors to wire in to the front signals, which are LEDs, but that wouldn't help with the arrows lighting with the headlights I don't think.

Any ideas?

 

Matt, it sounds like either a bad ground OR the LEDs don' pull enough to make the flasher do its thing, it depends on the load to work. Put the resistor on the line and see if that helps, then run the grounds down if it doesn't

 

Yeah that's on my list to do first thing. The two things that really confuse me are:

#1 - The hazard function works great. Indicators and exterior bulbs, all blink as expected.

#2 - The gauge green arrow indicators illuminate with the headlight switch.

 

its a ground prob

 

Matt, did you replace the standard turn flasher (separate unit than the hazard flasher) with an electronic one? When I went to LED lights, I had to do that. The standard flasher heats up a bi-metal spring to turn the lights off - LED's don't draw enough current to heat up the spring, so they stay on. Electronic ones are time (rather than heat) based so they will work with very low loads.

 

There are 2 types of thermal flashers, 1 opens the circuit with the sping heated by the resistor wire, the other closes the circuit, the one that opens the circuit is a signal flasher, the one that closes the circuit is a hazard flasher

You may also have a ground problem, look for the ground wire that is connected to the a pillar just above the hood release lever and the ground strap running from just behind the no1 body mount to the frame on the drivers side.

The fuse box may be corroded also, it may need cleaning, my turn signals (albeit no leds on mine) didn't work and it was the fusebox, cleaned the contact (I have glass fuses just like you) and all is fine

 

The POINT is that he does NOT want to use ANY thermal flasher.

If the fuse box was the issue, the lights would NOT come ON as they are doing.

 

Whoa there turbo, easy easy, don't burst a vein. It says nowhere in this post he doesn't want a thermal flasher. How should I know? My point was, if he uses the wrong flasher type the lights will keep burning when leds are used and with one for a turn signal they will flash rapidly.

 

No, no - you're not paying attention - I am STATING that he doesn't want a thermal flasher for this application. Thermal types won't work unless ALL of the lamps are incandescent AND functional. They are designed to NOT work when any one bulb blows He NEEDS an electronic one because with a LED bulb in the circuit, it will be sensed as an open bulb.

 

That's fantastic info, and I was actually searching for all of the related grounding points to check them. Thanks.

The flashers I have are electronic flashers, but I was not aware that I might have two different kinds. The one I have in the hazard location seems to be just fine...I'll have to check the signal flasher, and see if it's the same and maybe find a different one.

 

Turn signal flashers (as in the one that thermally opens the circuit) make the turn signals blink rapidly when one or more bulbs go out (load decreases), the hazard ones will keep em burning. Anyway, the topic was about durangos problem not this discussion that'll lead nowhere

I have a 69 mustang here with a HD flasher and it has led taillights and led sequential hood lights, normal incendescent bulbs up front, works perfectly. Does Durango boy have leds all around? I have used Ripault electronic units in other vehicles which have an extra wire to attach a normal bulb which is needed to function properly, also have used others which were plug and play that didn't need anything other and some that needed an extra ground hooked up to function properly. Without the bulb load the ripault type will not flash, the lights will burn all the time. Is yours one of those red ones with 3 terminals? If so, it just may be the same. Hook up a small bulb to the 3rd oinbout instead of grounding it. There's a lot of different electronic flashers out there, you need to know exactly what you have, if you have one that needs the extra incendescant bulb and you ground that lead the lights will keep burning, swapping polarity will kill it instantly.

This is the ripault type electronic flasher:


and this is how it's hooked up, note the symbol for a bulb in the extra lead

 

Yep all bulbs are LED all the way around.

The flasher I have is a 2 terminal flasher. I don't recall seeing a three terminal but I'll look again, and look into installing that one and the extra bulb.

 

New info:

Both the hazard and signal flashers are the same model. Checking at the parts store I found that I have the wrong flasher in the hazard circuit...yet it works just fine.

The signal flasher is correct, and it's my problem. I have found a few more symptoms to list, as they may spark an idea for someone.

With the key in IGN, and the headlights ON, the arrows inside turn on. Then, if I move the turn signal switch to either side, that particular arrow gets BRIGHTER. This would tell me that the arrows are getting a little bit of power through the parking light circuit but I have no idea where it's being introduced.

With the key in IGN, and the headlights OFF, the turn signal switch will illuminate the dash arrows, and the front lights. They stay ON. The kicker is that the rear lights do NOT light up at all. The front lights do, low filament, which also is backwards.

Man there are just so many symptoms and quirks to organize and make sense of.

The hazards work fine, meaning that even if the headlights are on, all the bulbs blink on the high filament, yet when the turn signals are on and staying on, they are low filament only, and the backs are not lit.

Just hard to make sense of all of this and I need to find a way to show it and organize it to properly trouble shoot it.

 

I'm going to start a new thread, which will organize all of this to the best of my abilities considering what I have and what I know. It'll be in Tech.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1973205

 

Most likely a short between the normal lights and the blinkers. It could very well be a problem with the rear lights. The same filament is used for braking and blinking. When you brake one side is +12 and the other ground. When the blinkers are turned on the ground side also receives a 12V, resulting in no voltage over the bulb and it turning off. If all is working well, check the sequence of the cornering lights and then press the brake pedal, you will see that the sequence now reverses, then at first they dimmed, they now illuminate and vice versa.

It could be something small like your bulbs. Check if they properly engage the bayonet socket and check the contacts on the back, if you have those elliptic contacts on the bulb instead of the round one, they could be making contact on both sides.

 

I'm wondering if you're right that the problem is in the rear somehow, because the turn signal switch, no matter the position, IGN switch, or headlight switch...will make a change in the rear lights. It won't affect them at all.

When I replaced the sockets and installed the LEDs, I found that the brown wire was controlling the HIGH filament of the bulbs, and the signal switch and brake switch were controlling the LOW filament. This is backwards according to what I knew, so I cut the harness, and re-wired it so the brown was LOW and the brake / signal switches were controlling the HIGH.

I'm now wondering if that wasn't because of the previous owner messing with the wiring, but because there was an existing problem somewhere else.

I'm tempted now, to cut the whole rear harness off before the splice I made, and re-test all wires and re-wire all sockets again, making sure that each wire gets it's signal from the proper switch.

 

I had sort of similar bleed over issues on my old van. When the running lights were on, current was bleeding into the brake lights. This normally wouldn't be a huge issues, except turning the lights on would trigger the electric brakes for my trailer. Anyway, it turned about to just be something in the socket. Replaced sockets in the rear and bleed over was cured.

 

See I had issues with my signals with this car when I bought it. Eventually, to fix it, I replaced the four rear sockets, checked them all, and wired them all with new wiring. I tested them as I went and everything always tested fine with the exception of the signals and flashers. I assumed the problem was that I had not fixed the front signals and that was why the rear signals didn't work.