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Guys, I recently had my steering column out of my car, '69 Vette, after putting it back together I checked all the lights and horn, everything worked good. Took it out for a drive, I could see in the fiber optics everything was working. I go to take it out a couple of days later, headlights, park lights, 4-way flashers work. Turn signals and break lights don't. Fuses are good, I checked all the plugins on my column, they are all tight. I even tried connecting a jumper ground wire to my column, did not help. Anybody got an idea of what my problem is?
I believe your '69 has two flasher units: one for the emergency 4-ways and one for the turn signals. I'm no electrical guru, but maybe a bad turn signal flasher is the culprit.
Turn signals and brake lights both go threw the signal switch in the column. Maybe start with, do you have power to the brake light switch? Depress pedal, do you have power coming out of brake light? Move to harmonica connector on the column if yes to those. Do you have power from brake light switch going into the column? Then do you have power coming out of the column? With brake switch activated of course.
A simple test light and a wiring schematic are your friends here!
Last edited by 4-vettes; May 31, 2026 at 03:11 AM.
Yes, you are correct. Checking my '69 Corvette wiring diagram I see that there is indeed 2 flasher units. I had missed that. Thank you, I'll check that out today also will do some more probing with my test light.
OK, so I actually found 2 problems, one, I had no power coming through my brake switch, also once I located the turn signal flasher behind the passenger's side dash, I found it has simply came loose from the wires. Once I hooked it back up and replaced the brake light switch everything works again. One question though. I've included a couple of pictures. What are these things that were wired into both the brake light switch and the directional flasher switch? I have original incandescent bulbs. I can see no reason for having these -- whatever they are hooked up.
Yes, you are correct. Checking my '69 Corvette wiring diagram I see that there is indeed 2 flasher units. I had missed that. Thank you, I'll check that out today also will do some more probing with my test light.
OK, so I actually found 2 problems, one, I had no power coming through my brake switch, also once I located the turn signal flasher behind the passenger's side dash, I found it has simply came loose from the wires. Once I hooked it back up and replaced the brake light switch everything works again. One question though. I've included a couple of pictures. What are these things that were wired into both the brake light switch and the directional flasher switch? I have original incandescent bulbs. I can see no reason for having these -- whatever they are hooked up.
Those are noise capacitors. They take the alternator noise (ripple) out of the circuit. Are they necessary? Probably not unless you get noise in your radio.
They were installed by the dealer to reduce noise on the AM Radio, hence the crimp connectors. Don’t laugh but if the caps are in good shape they will bring a nice chunk of money.
4 way flashers work, stop, turn signals don't
