Friend of mine has a 1954 f-100. 6v positive ground original truck. Not been messed with. Problem started the other day when he, for whatever reason, ran it thru the car wash. Now the blinkers don't work. They worked fine prior to the car wash ordeal. Any ideas where to look to see what could be the problem? I think it's fused, but I'm not sure if it is and if it is, where is it. Thanks for reading this and any help would be appreciated. Jack.

 

When you say the blinkers don't work, are you saying they don't flash or, or they don't light, or both? I am thinking what may have happened that when it went through the car wash water might of gotten into a socket due to a cracked lens or a bad or missing lens gasket causing some water to short out the turn signal filament contact to ground thus shorting out the bulb and blowing the fuse. So I would before replacing the fuse go to each turn signal and take the lens off, check each bulb, make sure they are actually 6 volt bulbs (helping a guy with a 6v truck the other day and we found 2, 12v bulbs in it) take each out of the socket, make sure none of them are "jammed" in the wrong way, none of them blown by looking at each filament, make sure the sockets are clean, dry, and are in good condition. If all looks good, go to the steering column. If you have one of those after market turn signal controllers installed on the column, check to see if it's getting power by looking for the in line fuse powering it. Naturally there are a lot of connections here you need to check too. On my friends truck we found that the turn signal controller had a bad ground and that plus the wrong bulbs was causing problems. Hope this helps!

 

You know I think you hit it dead on. The passenger side tail light lense got broken. These were original lenses. They say FORD on them. This truck has the factory turn signal on the collum. So I will do what you say. I will check the sockets and the bulbs. Just to give you an idea about this truck. It has 35,000 original miles on it. I'm doing a brake job on it because he blew out his wheel cylinders on both front wheels. Truck had been sitting, believe it or not, in wait for it, a garage for at least 20 years. Back to the brakes. When I pulled the tires off the assembly line keepers were still on the drums. In all my years working on cars, I've never seen these keepers still on the darn drums. The inside is unreal. No radio. It's a six cylinder and it's three on the tree. I want to thank you very much for you info. Now I just have to find that fuse. I believe it's a 7.5 amp. fuse. I saw that on a wiring diagram for a 53. Have a great Labor day! Jack.

 

Hi Jack!

Yes I believe you are right, it should be a 7.5 amp fuse. it may be kind of hard to replace. It's wired between the ignition switch and the flasher. Not sure about the 54's, but I have a '56 and on it, the fuse holder and flasher is up behind the speedometer/instrument cluster. With a lot of light, see if you can see it and hopefully reach it. If not, you may have to reach up, disconnect the speedometer cable, and then pull out the instrument panel and reach it that way. Or maybe if you follow the wires coming out of the turn signal harness running down the left hand side of the column you could pull the spring clip holding the harness to the column, and move the wiring around a little under the dash. Follow the Orange with Yellow band wire. It should take you to the flasher, and the other flasher wire will run to the fuse. Again hope it helps!

It sounds like a cool truck. I am also looking at putting brakes on mine, and may have some questions for you!

Have a good Labor Day weekend, and Welcome to the forum!

 

Again, thank you very much.

 

WOW! Sounds like it might of been just a coincidence then? I also had a brand new one just go dead earlier this year. Mine from the factory is attached by a clip to the back of the instrument cluster. I had to remove the whole works to change it. To me it was a job. Lasted about 3 months and then quit. After troubleshooting and narrowing it down to the flasher I temporarily wired in another one glued to a cat food can , which sort of imitates the sound it would make when its attached to the back of the speedo, that drumming dinka-dinka sound. Even though its supposed to be an "EL" (extra loud) flasher it still sounds muffled, and it looks goofy hanging under the dash. So I need to tear the speedo out and change out the defective one. The side benefit? Every time I use my turn signal and turn into my driveway.....the cat comes running.

 

Cat food can? Interesting. Thanks for the info.