TPIGroove

Hello, I've come to this forum with electrical issues in the past (without much luck), but hopefully this one is simpler, especially since it's something I absolutely cannot ignore. Two nights ago, my passenger blinker system suddenly began acting funky. At first it would blink incredibly slowly, staying on for about two seconds before blinking. With the engine off and the key in the ignition, it refused to blink at all and stayed lit up. The next night it flat-out refused to work at first, until it decided to miraculously start functioning again. Later on, it broke, then started up again, and now it's completely off again. On top of that, when my headlights are on the turn signal in the dash stays lit permanently, and the two ambers in front are disabled. With the lights off, they just turn on solid with no blinking. The hazards work perfectly fine, and the left turn signal has no issues either. I replaced the bulbs for good measure and had no noticeable change. Is it possible there's some wires crossing somewhere, and if so what's the best way to track it down and fix it? Or can the signal flasher have only one side go bad and not the other?

TPIGroove

My mistake, I forgot to mention that. It's a 1988.

84 4+3

Check the ground tabs in the socket too. Mine did all sorts of weird things when it broke off and it took me forever to catch that.

JackDidley

Sounds like you have 2 problems. Ground as stated above. On my 87 I added grounds under the hood and at the instrument panel. Second problem may be a bad wire in the steering column. To test this try the signals with the column tilted in different positions to see if it comes and goes. That is all I have for you.

TPIGroove

Tilting the column didn't seem to change anything. I've got a four day weekend to diagnose this, so I'll start checking the grounds.

TPIGroove

Disconnected the battery and went to town on the light connectors in the front passenger corner of the car. Undid the ground and cleaned it up with a wire brush, giving it a liberal amount of dielectric grease, then used cleaner and the grease on all the nearby terminals. One thing I noticed was on the front amber, there's this little wire on the side of it separate from the rest, which I think is the ground. It was really loose, and even without grease it had trouble staying in. I made sure it was in when I was done, though I'd like to find a better way to make it stick. Once I was done I tested it and the blinker works again, thankfully.

Now to figure out how to tackle all the rust under my battery, THAT was a wake-up call.

TPIGroove

And it's back. I'm going to check the wires in that region next, maybe when I disconnected and cleaned everything it might have jostled some shorted wires separate. Also, how does that black ground wire for the front turn signal normally go in? I'm not sure if there's an issue with it or not since it seems like it isn't really sticking in the socket all that well.

JTSK

Following. This is almost the exact same thing my 85 is doing on the passenger side front turn signal.

TPIGroove

I believe I narrowed down the issue, but I haven't had time to check which wire. I'm 99% certain it's the ground wire. After jiggling the front turn signal bulb's socket, it works. Disconnecting the ground wire from the socket entirely causes this issue, so once the holiday rush is over I'm going to cut away the old electrical tape covering the wires and start feeling them up for breaks. Worse comes to worst, I can replace the whole assembly easily. It seems like the break isn't too far down the wire, so hopefully I'll be able to find it.

TBSS/85vette

My 85 did this exact thing. It was a loose pin where the harness connections are at the bottom of the steering column. Never a problem since.