lol it's not a pretty wiring job, but it's followable, I've seen ones where it looked more like a rats nest where everything criss crossed and you couldn't just follow one wire, reminded me of Christmas lights...

The switch is actually pretty easy to use, I click it with my hand pretty easy. I'm thinking, or rather just hoping, that something came loose and all I have to do is put it back on, lol.

I think all I should have to do is follow all the wires, I'm in the mood to just get lucky lol

 

My high beams wouldn't work when I first got my 52 and I checked the dimer switch out and was ok. Started tracing some wires out and found a loose connection in a spliced wire going to the lights. Once I redid that splice they worked. Just a thought.

 

Yeah that's what I'm figuring, I perfer having to reattach a wire over replacing a part, so I figure if I believe its a little problem like that strong enough, it will be, lol

 

I've heard that if you just twist the wires together and wrap some chewed "Juicy Fruit" around them they'll work great!

 

I just wrap both ends to a wrench, it's easier than finding a new piece of wiring and spling that. Plus it looks cool, so it has to work better and be safer.

 

I'll update this in case anyone searches for something similar in the future.

The blinker problem turned out to be a couple small things at the same spot; where it connected under the day (three wires in a female port with 4 openings). Turns out that the constant front light was from a black wire that had been put into the 4th opening, I still have no idea where this actually goes. After I looked at that I found that when I used my right blinker that my left front would work as well, but the right rear didn't, which lead me to believe the wires where in each other's port. That turned out to be the case, thanks to Julie I found the left front blinker uses a green with white stripe wire and the right rear uses a green wire. For some reason the wires off the switch did not have a stripe, they where both the same, though one did have white housing on the port, after switching those two I found my blinkers worked properly, well at random speeds but that should just be the flasher, and it doesn't bother me enough to change it right now, lol.


Currently my rear lights are dim, I am thinking I am simply not getting enough power to just them as the front lights are very bright. Once it cools off I'll run a new ground and see if that fixes it, if not then the the other two wires as well.


Still don't have the hi/lo working, but I do think it's at the switch, just waiting for a day it's not 105 degrees and having to be directly in the sun to work on this.

Once the brake lights are bright and the brakes have been bleed, it's time for my first real drive

 

You might just need to put brighter bulbs in the back....I use 1176s on 12 volt!

Dirty grounds may cause the odd blinking or a bad/marginal connection with most of the wire strands crimped off or rusty/dirty bullet connector.

The 56 signal kits required one to unhook the wires going to the tail lights and install the new ones coming from the signal switch. Could be one of those are dirty or rusty.

Glad it turned out to be a simple fix. One picture is worth a thousand words!

 

The brake lights turned out to be wired backwards, causing the wrong filament to light up. I traced the whole line and couldn't find where it crossed, but at least it works properly now. I discovered this after it was mentioned to see if the running lights where brighter, which they where, thus they where switched.


Right now about all I have left to do is the headlight hi/lo, I believe the switch just needs to be cleaned up, after removing the plate it's on the WHOLE thing was filled with about 3 cups of dirt and all the connections look black with gunk. So I'll clean those up and give it a shot. Should be the switch though as I could get different results if I banged the switch a little, so something is a bit off inside.

My instrument lights haven't worked, but I found if I ran a line from the extra coming off the running lights to the other end of the instrument lights that they worked properly.


And I believe my brakes just have to be bleed for the lights to work right, I'm looking into a mechanical switch so they come on sooner than when I have to stomp on them. If all works well with bleeding them, it's time for my first drive with it thats more than 10 feet.

And I do feel very fortunate that every problem I've had just seems to be a small one, I'm well aware that it's more common to have to replace everything.


Oh and that one black wire I traced back to the headlight switch and found it goes to the dome light, which I don't have.

 

If you ever decide to put a dome light in, and install the door switches too, there is a drawing for that in the Power Point files I sent you.

 

Got the headlights fixed, the work A LOT better now. It turned out that the inside of the switch was all nasty. When I removed the plate it's bolted to I found that the WHOLE thing under it was packed with dirt, which also means mud, which also means crude. At first I tried to just clean up the contact points, since that didn't work I opened it up, always curious to see how these things work:



Once I cleaned everything and put it back together it worked great. To anyone testing it after doing so I found the inside needs to be held on well (I didn't put the tabs back till after I tested it), if it's not in there well, or rather pushed up at all, it tends to be funky and not work at all. A screw driver worked well enough to get the 5 tabs up a bit (they're just dented at the sides), I used a hammer and chisel to put them back on real snug.


So that should be the end of the electrical. I do have a mechanical brake light switch coming in just because I want my brake lights to kick in when I push the pedal even a little, not when I have them all the way down.


Don't really mind not being able to dim the lights, course I say this prior to using it, I only remember ever dimming them on long night trips.




The only thing I have left with the eletrical, I think, is the battery light. It stays on, it always has. It maybe something funky up there, getting a constant live wire like the turn signal did, or I may need to replace something. I've been using the battery a whole lot to test out these problems, it's still strong enough to start the truck, course it was new and I may find it dying on me when I start driving this around...

If the battery light is propperly hooked up that means it's the generator correct? It's also hooked up to the starter judging by the wiring diagram. I have noticed on the diagram it shows three wires connecting on the lightswitch... I only have two. One goes to the light (which goes to the starter) one goes to the ignition switch, and one goes to the generator regulator. I think it's the one to the ignition switch as it's shown as B-G in color and there are only two yellow ones on it, which are the other two. But that shouldn't effect this.


Anyway to test the parts before yanking them off and replacing them?


Thanks for the help, makes life easier

 

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Thanks Julie, lol you sure make this a whole lot easier. Appreciate all your help.

I'll re-wire it and hope that's all it is, with the mess I fixed yesterday I'm really hoping thats the problem, lol not in the mood to spend more money just yet, lol.

 

I hope it is just that wiring. One thing I forgot to mention about the wiring is that the wire going through the loop on the amp gauge has to be passing through the loop in the CORRECT DIRECTION.

ON mine with the 12 volt conversion that was from the discharge side of the gauge through the loop and out the charge side (left to right). When you rewire it, if the light stays on, first thing is to try reversing the direction of that wire through the loop before you test the other components.

 

Thanks for the help. I don't actually have a gauge, just the battery light warning. Only gauges I see are the temp and fuel.

I traced all the wires, which proved to be "fun", after testing in a few ways I found the problem had to be the generator. I'm in the process of putting an alternator on with a built in regulator, if it works right I'll post more on it.



One thing that was new to me but I found out when talking to the elders at the parts store was after a battery has either been drained or a cable removed, the generator regulator has to be charged. This is done by making a spark between the Battery and Arm posts (A and B) while the key is in the ignition and the accessories are on.

After I did that the battery light still remained on. So time to upgrade. That old generator was massive (I'll keep it though, might be something someone considers worth fixing)


After I swap this out, if that light stays on again, I may have to shoot it, or do the Homer on it and put a piece of tape over the light.



Oh and on the lightswitch, I found there was a wire going from the hot bus to the ignition, it was the other yellow wire, that thing was short enough I think it was always that way. The wire I found to be missing was one that went to the battery light, the light itself had a black and yellow wire, but these went into a formed housing, no splicing or anything like that. They also seemed independent. Since all the wires where wrapped (the yellow I traced back to under the dash that lead out to the engine bay) I wasn't able to truly follow the black wire, since more than one black wire came out at the bottom of it all, I cut the wire at the light, then hooked it up to the light switch where the diagrams all put it, got the same result. So i just hooked it back on to whatever it was originally. Tested the generator regulator as you listed, same results to. So this "should" be it.

Now to get to it...

 

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