I have just finished all wiring in my 52 Ford including a new 7 wire turn signal switch. I took the truck for a test run today, started out with all turn signals and four way flashers. I got to a turn around spot, got out to check and I didn't have any tail lights at all. No turn signals, no hazards, nothing. I drove back home, pulled in my garage and my taillights were back on. So I've wiggled and played and I have kind of rules out my light switch as the culprit. As long as I pull the lights on park or full lights no worries, but as soon as I hit the turn signals my tail lamps sometimes go out, sometimes stay on. This is my exact action of what happens...
1. Pull lights on(park, low beam, high beam, and tails all working)
2. Turn the turn signal on right indicator, front signal works, right rear works, left rear also comes on???
3. Turn off right turn signal indicator, switch to left indicator, tail lamps go out but the other filament in rear bulbs is now flashing on both sides almost like hazard lamps.....???

I'm almost positive that it's in my turn signal switch because before I installed turn signals, all of my lighting was all in good shape. After installing the turn signal switch according to manufacturer directions, it seems I have a bunch of crossed wires??!?

I also have a brand new battery, and within driving just five miles, it will hardly crank the engine over? Could there be a correlation between the signal switch and the battery draining?

I need some major help, I'm about to go crazy on this truck, seems like it's always something.

Thanks!!!

Jon

 

So, lets start at the begining: 6V? Stock? Generator? Which wiring diagram?

 

Bad grounds can make a lot of funky things happen with lights. Make sure you have good grounds at all the lamps. Early light sockets use the housing as the ground, I dont trust them and solder a wire right to the lamp socket and run it to the chassis.

 

I found the issue with the lights. Sorry forty niner, in my haste of frustrations and anger I forgot to mention my details. I have a 52 Ford F1 with a 302, 12 volt system with 4 wire Ford alternator, seven wire turn signal switch with dual element bulbs.

However I found that
1. I had replaced my hot wire terminal with a quick disconnect earlier this evening and the quick disconnect was not allowing a proper connection(mad props to my wife for suggesting that this may be part of the issue)

2. I found that when wiggling the tail lights (during cursing at them and threats of ripping them off)that when wiggling them they came on and off, I had remembered Albuq-f1(Ross Collord) telling me that the tail lights were bad to not ground to the tail light bracket , so I removed the tail lights and scraped off the paint, and bam, issue is fixed!!
Turns out I just needed some proper grounds.

Now, I need to find out where all my power is draining from causing my battery to die out, I don't have a radio hooked up, no heater, nothing, except for a turn signal switch.

Any help is greatly appreciated in this issue of power drains. Sorry again forty niner, I was just frustrated and forgot to post my details. I'm supposed to be taking the truck to the exhaust shop tomorrow morning for exhaust.

Thanks,

Jon







Don't buy one of these!!!!!





Scraping the paint off made a huge difference!

 

Drptop70ss, you are completely right!

 

You may just be transferring the issue further down the road. Put a grounding wire under one of the taillight housing mounting bolts, and run both taillight grounds into a common ground wire that goes all the way to the engine compartment, to a grounding lug tied directly to the (-) post of the battery. Run all your major grounds like that, you'll never have any problems.

The bed is not really grounded. It has rubber pads under the cross-sills, so the only electrical path is thru the fenders to the running boards to the RB supports to the frame. Not likely there is a clean, low-resistance path there....

 

Glad that you have one problem solved. Improper grounds are the starting point for every wiring issue. Good to know that your wife is an ace troubleshooter. There are times when the less you know about a particular situation, the better your questions - mainly because you don't make any assumptions.

 

Sounds like an awesome plan! Man, if it weren't for you guys on here I don't know what I would've done through out this restoration.

Thanks again!

 

I always run a ground wire from the battery to the engine block, from the engine block to the frame, and from the frame to the body. In this case I would run one from the frame to the cab and from the frame to the bed since the bed is isolated from the cab.