John---I will relay what I found when going thru this with my '73, about
10 years ago.
Ever since new, one side was always slower than the other. (Six blinks
per 10 seconds vs ten blinks per 10 seconds) Cleaning the bulbs and
connections did not improve this. I went to another bulb in the front
which doubled the rate of flashing in the "slow" side. Later, I changed
the bulb in the other side. Now both sides look more like other cars.
Low battery charge definitely slows down the blink. Better alternators
helps this slow/no blinking at engine idle speeds with accessories on.
If one bulb is out, none of the turn signal bulbs should blink. If the
flasher works for one side, the flasher isn't the problem.
Apparantly there is more resistance on the side of the turn circuit
causing the reluctance to blink. I gave up trying to figure this out,
and just went with bulbs (and an alternator) that were more
co-operative!
Dick
From: jvannorman@wowway.com(John VanNorman)
Another round of questions for the group.
As part of replacing the steering wheel bushings this weekend, we had to
disconnect the turn signal control. After hooking it back up (and double
checking the connections using Dan Master's book -- God bless you Dan!)
we found that although the driver's side signals were flashing, the
passenger side turn signals weren't (neither the front nor the rear
signals). So reading through Dan's materials, I think it is one of the
following problems: (1) a bad connection that is reducing the amount of
current running through the wires for the passenger side signal - i.e.,
there isn't enough juice getting through to cause the flasher to flash,
(2) a corroded bulb connection or bad bulb, or (3) a bad flasher.
So to help us figure out what it really is, I have some questions.
First, is it possible for a flasher to go bad so that the signals on one
side of the car still work but the ones on the other side don't?
As a side note, I noticed that when we first tried them out, the
"working" driver's side signals flashed at a very, very slow rate at
first - so slow that at first we thought they weren't flashing either.
But after that they went back to normal.
Second, could the fact that the battery may be low on juice impact just
one side? And third, if there is corrosion or a bad bulb on one signal,
does that automatically cause a problem for the other signal on that
same side of the car?
John V.
1974 1/2
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