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MG TD TF 1500 - HELP! mystery turn signal dash light

Driving me crazy. My TF has done this a long time, and is completely restored. The lights all blink nicely front and back. The issue that is driving me crazy is the green dash light. When I turn right, the dash light blinks as it should and the signal blink about the right speed. When I turn left, the outside lights blink bright but much faster. What really gets me if the dash light blinks once, then no more or extremely dim. I bought a new flasher can from Moss, with the screw terminals, made in England. I hooked it up and all worked well, even the dash light was brighter than before and clicked at about the right speed. Then I think I saw a little bit of smoke from the can and it stopped working after I had been testing for a minute or so, and was warm! Now someone said that maybe the left side had a bad ground, but I would think that would affect the dash light. Besides, I wired them direct to ground with a jumper, and it made no difference. Does anyone have any idea what could be the culprit? Thanks, Keith
K E MURPHY

Keith - Where are you grounding the left light to? If it is to the fender, try running from the ground point on the fender down to the frame and see if that makes a difference. Cheers - Dave
DW DuBois

More times than not, a poor ground will create problems difficult to find. Little story not Brit car specific, but interesting. In 1973 I bought a new Chevy ElCamino, from day one the tail lights were dimmer than they were supposed to be. The turn signals would work, but if the left signal was on, the right tail light would blink also very dimly. The dealer and all their mechanics could not find the problem. They had every piece of test equipment on the vehicle they could find, but could not fix it. I brought it home after they had it for three days to put my new permanent licence plates on. While doing so, I took off the cardboard temp tag and put the new one on and during the process I noticed a wire drooping a little in front of the rear bumper, here it was a ground wire the factory installed screwed to the a rear bumper bracket, which was ok if it worked, but I found the factory did not fit the connector on the wire properly and that was where the fault took place. So from that day forward, I never say, if the factory did it, it has to be correct!
Incidentally I never told the dealer what caused the problem, just mean I guess. LOL! PJ
Paul Jennings

Paul, Paul, Paul. Please find those guys and tell them. before it's too late. Now likely in their 70's or 80's, I'm sure they'd finally like to put this issue to rest so they can get some damned sleep.
MAndrus

Paul notify GM immediately so a recall can be initiated on all 1973 El Camino, Chevelle, Monte Carlos and Lagunas. LOL
W. A. Chasser

Keith,
When I first got my car the wiring was a bit of a mess. I got most of it working and the car was perfectly drivable. Over the last six years I have added many electrical modifications. (On a previous post you can see pictures of the jungle that had grown behind my dashboard.) Then I started my LED conversion. What a mess. All sorts of weird things were happening. My instrument lights would blink when I went to make return. My turn indicator light flashed all the time. 1 of the 4 turn signal lights would not work. And it goes on and on.
It was at that point I decided to strip all the wiring behind my dashboard and to not rely on where anything was previously connected. I spent a lot of time researching many T series schematic wiring diagrams. I finally had to create my own schematic that was appropriate to the basic T series wiring, modified to include all of my additions.
During the rewiring process I was careful to check every connection point to make sure it was tight and every ground cleaned and secured.
I have a collection of 6 or 7 electronic flashers that are supposed to work with my positive ground system. The one that finally worked was a three-pronged unit with a tail wire for grounding. I got this flasher from Litezupp.
Everything seems to be working perfectly and I am very pleased with the final result.
I'm sorry I don't have a specific solution for your problems but this is how I solved mine.
Good luck.
Mort


M Resnicoff

Strange to say Keith,
And I hope what you have is not contagious. Last week for the first time in 50 years of diving my TD. I had exactly the same issue you described.
For me Turning left indicates just fine. Going right, the front wing light flashes fast and the dash light blinked once.
Turned out to be the rear right brake light bulb element had failed
Does you brake light come on without the indicator OK. That would dispel the ground question.
My issue was complicated as the spare bulb I have carried for all those years in the tool box - was also bad.. Go figure.

Rod
Rod Jones

Hey Mort, I left a message on your old post about the led ghosting on pinball machine. I will look at LiteZupp. with all the work you did on that amazing TD you have a lot of accumulated knowledge!

Rod Jones - I assume your brake light was not working when the dash light gave problems? My brake lights work fine, when blinking or not. Did yours, and only the dash board indicated differently? I might try a different bulb. Darned I just put the lens back on the TF with all the rubber trickery.

Keith
K E MURPHY

Keith,
When the dash light only flashed once, and the front right wing light blinked rapidly. I tested the brakes and the brake light did not work on the right side. So gave some hope it was only the bulb that had failed. Swapped the bulb with my spare and still no joy. Certainly looked good to the eye. Used an AVO meter and proved the bulbs were both bad. No continuity. So dug out another bulb from the Extra spare box and all was well. If your brake light does function OK, that at least proves your ground is OK and the issue is in the flasher unit or the other relay box. Or possibly wiring.
Sorry I cant be of more help.
Rod
Rod Jones

Keith, I'd say you have one of two issues..

1. Bad flasher....I'd pick up an electronic flasher to test it out...it won't look right but I suspect that you will find your dash indicator will work. They are not that expensive...less that 10 bucks.

2 The other possibility is the ground is not good from the bulb socket or the bulb itself is not making good contact.

The indicator isn't part of the turn signal wiring so they are not dependent upon it working. So I wouldn't be chasing anything on the wiring or relay box.
L E D LaVerne

SOLVED!Thanks all, esp Rod Jones! After trying and for some reason burning out a new flasher can from the big M, and testing grounds twice, and reversing bulb and noting it does say Top and noting a VERY small improvement to no avail, someone that Rod said caught my eye. He said change the bulb. It makes no sense - both lights were bright on outside, the dash light even blinks once. But I humored him and put in a new bulb. IT WORKED! Both flashers burn bright green on the dash now! Can't explain it as the bulb was functioning almost fine and nothing visible appeared in the bulb. Go figure.









K E MURPHY

This thread was discussed between 10/03/2017 and 12/03/2017

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