• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Turn signal problem solved [sometimes its not your fault]

Share this page

L

Legal Bill

Jedi Knight
Country flag
Offline
For the past two years I've been unable to find the problem with my right turn signal circuit. I had the problem where the right side would blink twice as fast as it should and the indicators on my dash would both blink at the same time. I posted about the problem here a couple years back. Most folks said I needed to check the grounds. I went through all the wiring (which is all new), all the connections (which are all news) and checked the grounds (which were all good) at every step of the circuit. I made sure the relay box was properly connected to the turn signal wires. I even replaced the flasher unit. It still operated the same way. I couldn't find the problem.

Last week I went to get my inspection sticker and the guy at the service station took one look at the turn signals and says "That right front fixture is wired wrong. Your turn signal switch is sending power to the parking light filament. I can tell by how bright it is."

Hmmm. Here's a guy who works on modern Nissans and Chevys all day. Could he be right? Back under the car this afternoon and I looked closely at the connections from the right front parking/turn signal assembly to the wiring harness. The connections are correct according to the wiring diagram. I take off the lenses on both front fixtures. Sure enough, the right front fixture is lighting the wrong filament in the two filament bulb. I checked the bulb by installing a spare bulb. Both bulbs lit the same. So I push out the fixture contact card that the wires are attached to. (I'm talking about the fiber board with the contacts that meet the contacts on the bulb.) I disconnect the wires from the card, reverse them, put it all back together and the problem is solved.

So many thanks to the guy at the inspection station. He gave me the right idea. I just had to track it down. And a big Boo at Moss Motors. Someone in China wasn't paying attention when they assembled this fixture. If you have a similar problem, checkout the wiring of the fixture itself.
 
Last edited:
I recently had exactly the same experience. As far as I can tell, there are no identifying marks for the wires at the light fixture connections. I should have figured it out on my own, but a responder provided me with the information. Sometimes the answer to these problems can be pretty simple
 
I have to say this one drove me crazy and ****** me off. Ten or more people must have pointed out the problem to me over the years.
 
Hi Bill,

Thanks for sharing your achievement as an incorrectly wired light socket would NOT have come to mind when looking for the solution of double blinking dash indicators or a fast flashing signal.

Enjoy your Healey as it provides many stories to tell,
Ray (64BJ8P1)
 
Last edited:
As a side note, I installed a new wiring harness in our BN2 per the schematic. Everything worked perfectly except for the turn signals. Spend hours checking and double-checking my installation vs. the schematic, and everything seemed correct. Finally determined that the new harness had the color scheme wrong on a couple of the wires--reversed the wires and everything worked. Ticked me off as, except for that, I got everything right the first time following the schematic.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Ray and Bob. So many of the "spares" for our cars require "finishing" before they can be installed that I consider them rough approximations.
 
Back
Top