The day nothing worked: a tale of turnsignals and brakelights

So, here I am trying to get EVERY singe electrical thing to work in my truck, and I have succeeded. Except for my turn signals and brakelights. Heres the story: In the past, I have been having problems with the turnsignals and brake lights getting along together. When you press on the brakes, one front turnsignal comes on steady. when you turn on either turn signals, niether rear one works. When you turn on the running lights, the rear lights work, but no turn signals. Now the front ones: When you turn on one turn signal, the right one comes on too, but is really weak. If you unhook the wire for the front running lights, they work fine. Here is the question: could it be I wired something wrong? or could it be that there is something wrong with the turn signal switch? i recently pulled the whole wiring harness out of the dash, took all of the tape off, and traced every wire. Nothing out of place. What the hell is wrong with this? I am just about fed up with the whole thing. Here is a picture of the fuse block. I re did some wiring to incorperate a radio, and re-did the turnsignal setup, because someone in the past had wired it directly without a fuse.

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/021/ip/xM/WS/ag41534.jpg[/img]

The Radio and Brake LP(4.) fuse holders were broken, so I re-routed through it and used an inline fuse. The turn signal fuse holder was also broken, so I re-routed and intalled an inline fuse. The gray Dotted lines show where the wires were origionally. I have no Idea what the arrows are pointing too, maybe you guys have an Idea. The panel Lts. fuse(2.) didnt have any wires hooked up to it, so I assume they were connected behind the fuse block. The flasher for the turn signals was gone, so me and my dad patched a flasher into the turn signal fuse holder(6.). I routed the memory wire for the radio into the brakelights to provide constant current to the radios memory. I dont know if any of this screwed up the flasher and the brake lights or not. What do you guys think?

:confused:

the brake light power goes from the brake switch through the turn signal switch to the rear lights {at least on my old ****}.you should have four wires coming FROM the turn signal switch,two to the front lights,two to the back lights.the reason that your front light comes on with the brakes is that the front and rear wires on that side are crossed.maybe?

Hi, sorry to here of your grief, Here is what I would probally check first if this was my project. The ground circuit on the bulbs all the way thru the light system. Every time I have had a light, cause another light or another system to come on or become dim, it has been a groud. Hope this helps

Chb46

Your front directionals are NOT running lights. There is a way to get them to be on with the rears on park position, but that is through the switch. From the factory, pull switch to 1st position and you have park lights all around, 2nd position; headlights and rear only, no park lights. This could be the source of your problem. If you want to change this, you can change it at the swich by moving park light wire to headlight location. good luck. K10

PS. You have a hazard switch?!? K10

nope, no hazards.

If you want the original marker lights in the front to also function as turn signals you will need to install a different socket in the lights--one that will accept an 1157 amber bulb. This is not hard to do.

The tail lights will also have to be dual filament bulbs (1157). The turn signal will have to be a 7 wire (Signalstat 900) in order to have the turn signals and brake lights using the same bulbs in the back. A four wire turn signal switch will require separate brake lights on the back--a four wire signal flasher will not handle brake lights.

Usually, if you have lights coming on when they are not supposed to or if some are dim when they are not supposed to be, a bad ground is the culprit. The exact location of the bad ground is sometimes hard to track down, but just think of the quality time you can spend on your truck just looking for bad grounds

Just wondering if you were able to get the signals working.

Is the truck your working on the 1962?

Your fuse #6 says "hazard sw".

I think he misunderstood your question on the hazard switch.
you asked if he had a hazard switch

he said he said he has no hazards,,,,
does this mean he has no switch?
OR that the hazards do not work?

Had a similiar problem once, caused by a bad ground at the device. Some turn signal and or brake housings are grounded by the screws or bolts that hold them to the truck. Same with the bulbs, remove them and clean all terminals. Grounds are extremely important! Hope this helps.

Considering that there is 3 hour time diff., between Oregon and where these posts go, what are we doing up at this hour?

I'm working a little O.T. and posting on my breaks and slow time.


[ 12-01-2001: Message edited by: 6T2Burb ]

I got it figured out. The aftermarket turn signal unit is toast. I also figured out why the front turnsignals were coming on at the same time. The front turn signal harness under the hood had been chopped and re-connected probably more than once, and over time, opening and closing the hood worked the tape off of the wiring, and they shorted against each other. I fixed this, and now everything works fine. The fuse block is set up for a hazard switch, but this truck didnt come with one. And yep, this is the same 1962 GMC truck that I have toiled over for the last 4 1/2 years.