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'66 Big Car Turn Signal short kills a Flarestat hazard flasher
This was an optional "Flarestat" hazard flasher from the mid-60's before GM built them into the harnesses in the 70's.
It was made by a manufacturer in New York and has worked well for 25 years or so for me. Always thought it was a cool & useful option. The death of a fairly rare and cool option. I may rewire it someday, but luckily I had a spare in my stash...
One day a few weeks ago my turn signals started acting weird, so I removed this from the circuit. It was not _the_ culprit, but was clearly a victim or _a_ culprit in a faulty brake/turn signal system.
What I noticed was that the left turn lights were not blinking and wires to the switch were getting very hot.
What I know so far is that there is a fairly major voltage drop from the fuse block to the brake lights which power the turn signal. Just 11.5 volts at the brake switch. I'm thinking it should be more like 12-13.
I have tested disconnecting the light leads front & rear and the turn signal switch still heats up. My suspicion at this point is a broken or failing wiring in the power to the brakes/turn signal system, or maybe a short in one of the lines to the lights.
Next move is to rig a temporary jumper cable from the fuse block to the brake switch and see if that makes things work correctly. If a jumper works, I think that means I have a weakness or short deep in the dash harness which probably means pulling the whole harness. I don't dread that, but it'll eat a few days easy.
For anyone with views or knowledge, here’s the scenario. My convertible is having trouble with it turning lights.
I’m zeroing in on a bad ground in the tilt & tele steering column. In ‘66 big cars with tilt & tele, it seems Olds fed the ground signal to the turn signals from the horn.
I replaced the power wire from the flasher with a new & separate wire just to be sure the 12v into the turn signal switch was good, but I still got a weird flash pattern, so a fresh 12v didn’t help (much). Next I disconnected every. (Every…) light and bulbs output wire from the switch and the pattern was still not right.
My suspicion is that the ground wire in the convertible column might be bad or marginal.
The symptom is it yields about 7 volts to a multimeter with the keyswitch in “Run” position and the + side connected to the ACC circuit. I compared that to my ‘66 Starfire, also tilt & tele, but with good turn signals. The identical system in the Starfire returns a voltage value of ~.3 volts s when keyswitch is in “Run” position and testing the ground with the ACC circuit.
I tried just adding a ground to the convertible turn signal switch, but since it’s grounded through the horn, I got a pleasant continuous horn. Blind alley.
I suspected the horn relay and polished the points a bit, which helped, but I’m not quite there. Looks like I have to disassemble the column and replace the ground wire.
Anyone have an easier/smarter fix? Thanks in advance
Chris
PS: Had a great ride to Sonoma, CA & Healdsburg today in the ‘66 Starfire. Lots of fun, nice smooth trip, and lots of smiles.
Turns out when I dropped in a new large battery last month, it clipped and shorted a wire to the left front turn light. In ‘66 big cars, the front turn signal light wires run vertically down next to the battery and there’s not much clearance, or maybe my battery is just a bit on the big side.
As the wire moved around it was intermittent so it was hard to find, but this morning when I was unhooking the battery and I heard the short “snap” sound which wasn’t supposed to be there. A quick look and it was pretty obvious. I had clipped and repaired it before so this time I got a fresh length of black 14ga wire and soldered in a new Packard 56 Male connector.
What’s weird is that when I disconnected the front turn light wire at the turn signal switch, I still got a weird pattern from the flasher. That should not have been true, but was.
Along the way I replaced some original and/or aging parts: horn relay, 40 amp circuit breaker and so on. The alternator is putting out 14.4 volts and I’m getting 13 or so at the turn signal switch.
Hoping a test drive this afternoon confirms the fix. Hoping….
