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I have a 1978 f250 4x4 with a 429. i was trying to figure out if i my voltage regulator was bad cause my gas gauge did not work. and after i had taken the dash apart and put it back together my turn signals completely quit working. they dont even make any clicking sounds. although my hazards work and make the clicking sound. but the turn signals do nothing, no light comes on no nothing, so i checked all the fuses they are all good. there are two round silver bottle cap looking things under there to that said flasher on them. so i replaced those and still nothing. i am not sure what is wrong or what i need to do. please help.
The two silvers are the flashers/blinkers/things that make the clicking sound. The clicking is something in there heating up from electric current, and making/breaking contact, clicking as it does it, and completing the circuit intermittently.
If your hazards work then your flashers are and were fine, I had this problem when I first bought my truck... trying to remember. The turn signals are on a switch in a sort of plastic disk in the steering column, right where the lever goes in, that part cooould be bad, but I doubt it would go coincidentally right after you did that work.
My truck's in 10,000 pieces right now or I'd just go out and check, maybe someone else will know, or I'll remember.
Most likely you inadvertently disconnected the wire supplying the turn signals with power. I don't know how much difference there is between the wiring on a '74 and a '78, but I think in mine it daisy-chains over from the back of the wiper switch. Get a copy of the wiring diagram and trace it out with a volt meter.
ok well i have an update, when i got in behind the dash and did some more digging there are some wires leaving the cab in what would be the inside of the fender. these wires are bare and some are almost not there. there are only two that i could see. i have a couple of pics but cant figure out how to upload them.
as you can see in the first pic the wire is all but gone right there. and in the second one it is just missing its outer layer. but i dont know how to replace that kind of connector. the connector in the first picture is directly below the one in the second picture if that makes sense. and the bare wire in the second picture is the one that connects the to connectors together.
If their are just two wires associated with the connectors you could go to radio shack and purchase a two wire "molex" connector and plug and replace both for about 4$ or 5$.
well upon further investigation I found there are several wires that are fried. So it looks like I need to replace the wiring harness for all of the lights behind the instrument panel.
well upon even further investigation i found that the really frayed out wire goes to the headlight switch and is completely disconnected. so it must have finished breaking when i was back there playing with my fuel gauge stuff. but i found a guy parting out a 78 f250 and he sold me the wires i needed and a spare rim for $40 so that wasn't bad. although i had to cut the wires out with some snips could not get one whole piece so it might be interesting to fix but i think i can get it done. just need to match up the colored wires i think. gonna try that in the morning.