my tun for turn signal wiring woes

[my427cobra]

Hi all y'all. Now it's my turn for turn signal wiring woes. I have researched all the old threads and they all have a common theme: grounding problems . Well that dosent seem to be my problem so here it is :

1) Set-up : 2 lamps in front with 1157 (2 filiment) bulbs (wired for park lite and turn signals), 4 lamps in back all with 1157 bulbs(top lamp wired for park lite and brake lite, bottom lamp wired for park lite and turn signal).

2) All lites good and brite with park and headlites ON and with park lites only ON. No grounding problems here.
Brake lites work great on brite filament.
NO TURN SIGNALS WORK.

3) With park lites and headlites OFF, ALL SIGNAL LITES WORK GREAT.
Turn the park or park and headlites ON , NO TURN SIGNALS WORK.

Anybody have any suggestions?
For some reason , turning the park and headlights on seems to cancel out the turn signal circuit.

Hope someone can help.
Greg

[Bruce Edwards]

Have you tried pulling the upper bulbs out to see what happens? Electricity is a funny thing. It will find any path to ground that it can. Sorry to say it but it does sound like a ground problem. If you pull the bulbs and it does not change anything try running a jumper wire from a good ground to the ground built on to the lights and see what happens.
One question, did this problem just start?

[strictlypersonl]

Is the battery fully charged? Some flashers are sensitive to low voltage. To check, connect a power lead to the signal switch feed lead together. See whether the lights work then (without flashing).

[my427cobra]

Thanks for the input. I installed a brand new Optima battery and it was fully charged before I ran into the turn signal problems.
Once again , all the lights are good and brite and everything including the turn signal work fine until I turn on the park/head lites, then the turn signals do not work. Turn the park/head lites off and the turn signals work fine again.
The only thing I haven't tried yet is something that was on a past thread about using a common ground and possible "backfeed".
I did change the grounds around to clean up the wiring and combined some together on one grounded bolt when they had previously been grounded to two or three different bolts. I'm going to separate them again this weekend to see if this solves the problem.
Thanks again for the help.
Greg

[G.R.]

on my '89 NAF 289 I had a similar problem, only just with the rear turn signals.

Re wired the lighting ground circuit and the light grounds for the rear lights and it cleared it right up.
FWIW

[slithering]

my427cobra,

You may have a series problem. By that I mean you may have the signal conductors in series with the headlights. Have you tried to connect a voltage meter to the signals when you have the headlights on? Try not to combine your grounds on a bolt. Take your ground wires to a point where you can set a multi wire terminal block. This still sounds like a grounding problem, possibly a backfeed. Last thing, you might try a continuity test on your signal ground wire. If you don't get it working, email me and I'll give you my phone #.

slithering

[G.R.]

A multi-feed block for ground was what I did--most of my lights were ganged and grounded to one bolt on the frame---all the rear lights were, once I put them to the block the rear turn signals majically worked

[my427cobra]

Thanks all. I think I now know what my course of action will be Saturday morning - seperate the grounds to their original locations and see what happens. I'll let you all know.
Greg

[Rick Parker]

Greg

You have mail.

Rick

[my427cobra]

Well, I moved the grounds around with no luck. Still the same problem :
the turn signals work great with the park and head lites OFF, and the park and head lites work great,
but the turn signals will not work with the park and head lites ON.
Any more ideas out there????
Greg

[Bruce Edwards]

Greg,

Did you ever pull any of the rear bulbs to see if you have a cross wire problem? You are using the 4 bulb set up on the rear right?

[my427cobra]

Well, I finally solved the turn signal problem, I don't know why, but I know how.
After a couple hours of grounding and regrounding and moving grounds around , I still couldn't get the turn signals to work with the headlites on.
So, I went around re-seating bulbs and swapping bulbs around. Still no luck.
Then I took a perfectly good working bulb out of the front right light and put in a used working bulb and ----- voila, the front right turn signal and back right turn signal worked with the head lights on.
Tried the same thing in the left front and it worked too.
Problem solved.
Go figure.
Thanks for everyones help.
Greg

[Bruce Edwards]

Greg,

After you said that the grounds did not fix it I kind of figured you have a crossed wire problem. I have seen some Mexico made bulbs do that in the past. That was why I asked if you removed any bulbs to see if the problem would go away.
Glad you found the problem.