I suspect a bad blinker relay somewhere on my '87 Vette. Symptoms:

When headlights are off, the rt turn signal indicator on the dash does not blink. Outside the car, right blinker lights go solid on until I'm done taking the turn.

With headlights off, the hazard lights blink as usual. Although the right nose blinker doesn't shine as brightly as the left nose blinker.

When headlights are on, rt turn signal indicator on the dash may turn solid on (no blinking) immediately upon activating headlight, or may refuse to turn off once I've used it and returned the blinker switch to the off position, again staying solid on. So I'm cruising down the road with outside right blinkers solid on. Previously, my right front blinkers and tail lights were also solid on with headlights on. But today when I turned on my headlights, the right dash blinker indicator went solid on, the right outside blinkers stayed off, and then the left outside blinkers went solid on.

I have no burned out blinker bulbs as far as I can tell. I assume there's only one bulb to each nose blinker.

Any theories how my blinkers are changing behavior depending on my headlights? Or why the right side blinker won't blink when my headlights are off?

Thanks!
Mike

 

Sounds like you have ground problems. At the dash and at the bulb sockets.

 

I would look at right nose blinker as you call it. If not corroded I would replace socket. Sounds like ground issue.

 

If you're sure the bulbs are good then grounds would be the next logical thing to check IMO.

 

Oh no, not the dash! That huge mess of wires!

OK, so if I see wires attached to a piece of metal, that's a ground, right? Do all electrical systems have to have a ground, or just some of them? (I'm a mechanical engineer, not electrical obviously)

What should I look for at the socket? Do I want to see a ground or no ground at that spot?

 

When did this problem start? LED bulbs? How old are the flashers?

 

2 months ago about. Original flashers as far as I know. No recent bulb changes.

 

Might be this issue:

Clean the bulb socket & replace the bulb.

Common problem with 2 filament bulbs: One of the filaments overheats & touches the other filament back feeding the running light circuit when the TS is in use + the TS circuit when the park/head lights are in use.

Suggest replacing the plastic TS flasher "can" with a Wagner #552.

 

So there's 2 filaments in my blinker bulbs? I'd not thought of that, but that could explain why the one blinker was dimmer than the opposite one when my hazard lights are on. I'll pull that bulb later and see what I get.

The TS flasher is the small shiny cylindrical gadget featured here?: I started to try to remove that thing last week, but then I decided not to after having doubts that a bad flasher could explain the change in my blinkers' behavior depending on the headlights being on or off. On my car, the wires enter the flasher from above, not below as shown in the video. (I'm not the original owner of my car, though I assume it's the original flasher unit.) For lack of passenger air bags and an easy-to-remove passenger dash panel, I was coming at it from the front. I could see it and just barely reach it, but I couldn't get the mounting clamp to let go of it. It has no screws, just a very strong pinch grip that I can't overcome.

Today, my right tail pipes were hanging weird. I looked and found that the exhaust pipe rusted and broke in two upstream of the muffler. Bummer!

 

I was able to confirm that one of the two filaments in the right blinker bulb is out. Bit of a pain to access that bulb, but after removing the car horn, I got to the bulb. Will find a new bulb this weekend. Ground wires attached to bulb socket were securely screwed to the frame of the car as designed.

I removed the muffler on the broken side of the rear Y bend. A broken segment of the Y-bend is stuck inside the muffler piece and won't budge and says 'can't touch this'. Maybe it's hammer time!

If y'all ever have a mattress pad wear out, save it for laying on when under your car

For the record, the car in the video above is NOT my car. It's Eckler's cut-away Corvette so you can see how it goes together.