Date:         Wed, 7 May 2003 08:18:53 -0500
Reply-To:     Tonya Pope <Tonya@HOLOREALITY.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Tonya Pope <Tonya@HOLOREALITY.COM>
Organization: HoloReality, Inc.
Subject:      Re: Turn signal weirdness
In-Reply-To:  <002501c31439$ae907520$be24c618@maine.rr.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Mine is doing something similar, so any responses to the list
would be appreciated.  On mine, however, all lights work even when
they decide to blink fast.  Emergency blinks are normal.

I'm thinking turn signal relay -- are there 2 or just 1?  Where is it (or
where are they)?  Could it be a bad ground causing this instead?
Any other possible culprits?

Thanks,
Tonya
87 Vanagon GL Wolfs

On 6 May 03, at 21:40, Ed Carroll wrote:

> Oh great and munificent list, who's wisdom has saved my sanity and my knuckles so many times and for which I have done so little in return, I beseech thee ...
>
> I noticed the classic "fast flasher" problem in our 87, which is my wife's daily driver. I figured it was a bad bulb and easy to fix, until the wife said it was "intermittent." Bad bulbs, of course, don't fix themselves. I discovered the rear driver's side was inoperative, which is dangerous,
and set about to test a little before buying the new bulb. Opened the rear light housing, and the bulb looked fine. Opened the other one just for comparison. Put the working bulb in the driver's side -- no worky. Put the driver's side bulb into the other socket -- works fine. So, two good bulbs,
something's wrong with the socket/circuit. No light with either bulb in that location with the emergency flashers on either.
>
> I got out the multimeter and put the left blinker on, put the neg. probe on the side of the socket and pos. to the strap electrode in the bottom of the socket: a little blip, then a dead spot, then by scraping around a little I get a good signal. The meter jumps up to around 10 volts in perfect
rhythm with the flasher relay. It's an analog meter and a little one at that, hard to read, and I know it's supposed to be 12 volts, so I check the other side; it works just fine with what appears to be about the same voltage.
>
> So I inspected and cleaned out the flasher bulb socket pretty thoroughly. Emory cloth on a stick, toothbrush, eventually a Dremel-style fine steel brush and polishing wheel, across the strap, up under the receptacles for the lugs that hold the bulb in, cleaned the bulbs, etc. Still, perfectly
good rhythmic voltage, and never the least flicker from a known-to-work bulb.
>
> I love the way the circuitry in the rear light unit is essentially a very beefy galvanized sheet metal circuit board. It allows easier testing, anyway. Strangely, from all I can gather, there's no resistance between the pos. and neg. of the flasher bulb socket (with the power off, of course.)
Is that because the relay is closed, or something?
>
> Anyone have any clues to this odd phenomena? Should I suspect the relay, even though the other side and the emergency flashers work fine? The signal switch, though the front flasher appears fine and there's voltage at the socket? What is up with that?
>
> Ed Carroll
> 87 Wolfsburg edition camper