Blinker issue!

[madkaw]

So while I was replacing rear main seals and doing a headlight realy upgrade and slapping on some Triples I decided to do that little trick to make my front marker lights blink. I referenced the Daniel Stern Lighting website that shows you how to switch the wires around so the front markers act as blinkers.

The problem is that the front left blinker doesn't want to work with headlights on now.The blinkers and hazards work fine without the headlights on. Now I did notice somewhere in all this work I did with my headlight upgrade that the left front blinker wires when moved around was causing issues with bulb-like there was a short. I know I might have already answered my question here, but I searched for possible replacement bulb socket assemblies and couldn't find much.

Now I know someone has dealt with fixing these assemblies, so I am hoping someone can give me some insight.

[EScanlon]

The side markers MUST be isolated from vehicle ground. If they're not, you'll short the circuit out.

E

[Arne]

What E said. You can get away with the marker housing grounding out to the fender with stock wiring, but to do the blinker trick the metal housing must not have a ground path. the housing needs to be correctly mounted in the groove in the rubber base gasket, and the mounting screws must not touch the side of the hole where they pass through the housings.

If you remove the marker from the car with the wires connected and it works properly, you definitely have a grounding issue.

Edited June 10, 2012 by Arne

[madkaw]

I did remove the marker lights from the fender and it had the same symptoms. So I am leaning towards a bad socket in the front blinker is shorting something.

Is there a replacement socket that can be used on the blinkers?

I have to dig into the assembly to see what's up

[Arne]

OK, that being the case, I think the ground to the left blinker is bad. With the lights off, the blinker is grounding by feeding back through the parking light circuit. Turn on the lights, and there is suddenly no place to complete the circuit. Check the ground at that light closely.

[madkaw]

Well I had a chance to troubleshoot the wiring. I basically starting removing things from the circuit using a process of elimination to find the issue. The rear left brake light would not work at all, so checked out my combo switch. The white with red stripe wire looked burnt on the switch and that's the wire for the left tail light.

So I cannibalized some other combo switches and rebuilt my switch.

Bingo- everything works!!

I also made sure I isolated the grounds on the marker lights