Four days ago i discovered that my both of my left rear turn signal lights weren't working on my 5A. The front and side one were both working fine. I found that one of the bulbs was burned out so i went to town and got a couple. By the time i got back it was raining and late so i put it in real quick and turned them on,.....nothing. The next two days it blew really hard so we stayed inside. Yesterday it rained all day. Today we moved 30 miles to a different place and i wanted/needed my signals to work before we left.
I had been thinking about it and what advice i would get if i posted a question about it here. I figured i would be told to check the ground, the wire, the relay, the flasher, etc. So i did look at the ground and the wire, but did not take them apart, the relay and flasher were clicking. I decided i should do the easiest thing and that was to check the other bulb and clean the contacts, which i did and it still did not work. I then decided that even though the bulb was clean and the filaments were not broken, to try a new bulb.......they now work! :) So thanks to all of the people who have asked and answered questions here, i was able to carry on my own little discussion with you all and even think beyond the obvious and come up with a solution without having to bother anybody. ;D Of course my wife has been wondering who in the heck i have been muttering to. :o
My wife makes comments about me talking to myself all the time.
I just tell her I'm finally having an intelligent conversation. ::)
It's interesting, though, that you went through an entire thread in your head without posting a single question. Well, most of an entire thread, anyway.
You forgot about the posts telling you to turn on the master switch, or check the tire pressure, or vote a certain way next year and it will start working.
I think this says a lot about your addiction to this bus board. You, my friend, need some serious professional help. :D
I often talk to myself when I am trouble shooting a problem. One thing I am slowly learning is to think it through and try to do the last thing first... Seriously. I went through a period of building aluminium flywheels for race cars, and part of the process was tapping around 30 10-32 holes in 6061-T6, and I would regularly break a tap. After pissing about with different tap extractors and other gimmicks, I would get out my Mig welder and weld a blob on top of the stub of tap and wind it out with Vise-grips. Eventually I learned to try that first, since it worked every time...
Brian
Umm, Craig, I had all of that covered,.... :) the master switch is always on. While i was fooling with the bulbs i had turned on the pressure pro to warm up so i could check the tires, and i wasn't going to wait for the elections. ;D
Should have mentioned in the first post that the burned out bulb that i replaced did not start working until i had put it in and taken it out a time or two. I think that i had just not made a good connection with the contacts. The second bulb worked immediately when i replaced it. :)
I am surprised there wasn't a "Blinker Fluid" comment in there somewhere! ;)
DEMOMAN
Lead contacts on bulbs become corroded enough to resist current flow even though they look ok. This happens regularly to the turn signals on my two old Chrysler minivans.
Usually all I have to do is remove and replace the bulbs a couple of times and they work fine. This, of course, wipes the corrosion from the soft lead bulb contacts.
Blinker fluid could help stop the corrosion!!
I was having troubles with my stock lighting working properly. My fix was to update the fixtures to LED fixtures. I have replaced them all except for the front and rear clearance lights (the ones on the corners) and the reverse lights. They are nice and bright and work when I need them to. All of the replacement fixtures we direct replacements except for the front turn signals, I had to make an adapeter folr them to fit correctly.