Hi there everyone.

I basically bought this car for next-to-dirt. The previous owner was preparing for a complete restoration project when he was unable to continue the project and had to sell it. Thus, I inherited this nightmare. It's come a long way, and nearly every problem I have encountered was easily fixed or replaced, but now I've reached a brick wall in the turn signals.

The lighting in the vehicle is somewhat temperamental, with the turn signals only working half the time and the dimmer **** for the internal lighting on the instrument panel causing the lighting to "flicker" instead of dim. The high beam headlights do not currently work, and I plan to attend to that at a later time, as right now I have ran into the hardest problem of all for me so far: the left turn signal.

The turn signals haven't worked on the car as far as I know during the history of my ownership of the vehicle. The left turn signal will come on, but does not flash. the audible click in the dash cannot be heard. The right turn signal will flash and the audible clicks are heard. This is while the headlights are not on. When I toggle the headlights to on by pulling the headlight **** out, the left turn signal still does not work, no clicks. The right turn signal slows down to half the speed previously. Audible clicks are still noted. When the toggle for highbeams is pressed, the low beam lights go out as they should, but the high beams do not come on. I have tested for power at the bulbs, no power coming from the wire. At this point, the signal lights resume normal behaviour, with the left just coming on, no blinking or clicking, and the right blinking and clicking as normal.

Oddly enough the Hazard lights do blink for both sides front and back and audible clicks are fine. they work when lights are on or off.

Currently I have disassembled the steering wheel so I could get direct access to the turn signal switch itself. I have the dash board under the steering column completely disassembled so I can see the wiring underneath. Everything is original wiring except a few additions I made for an amp power toggle switch and an aftermarket tachometer addition. While playing around with the switch itself for the turn signals, I did discover that if i accidentally ground one of the power leads for the left turn signal that it will go off and the audible click is heard. I can manually force it to toggle and the clicks are heard and the lights blink as they should, but this is obviously not a plausible fix. My suspicion is that it may be the relay, based off my experience with a 1999 dodge neon with a similar faulty turn signal problem, but looking underneath the dash of this car I have no idea which direction to head. Its foreign territory for me.

So far all I have actually done is disassemble and reassemble different parts of the dash looking for a faulty ground or pinched wire with no success. If anyone could offer advice I would greatly appreciate it. If you want pictures of certain areas of the vehicle please let me know and I'll post them ASAP. Thank you for your time and efforts hopefully this car will live again!

Brian

 

Hi, I have been currently rewiring most of my 84 Z28 and have run in to most of these problems as well.

Regarding the dimmer switch not actually dimming, but just flickering, I have the same problem and I don't see what it could be other than the headlight switch, even though I have replaced it and it still happens. With the hi-beams, check the connector for your hi-beam switch on the left side of the steering column towards the middle of it. Make sure all the wires seem fine and that it's connected fully.

Now, the turn signals. I had the same problem with my left signal not flashing, and it turned out to be the actual switch in the steering column. I replaced that and now both of my turn signals work normally. They are slow-ish, but I'm pretty sure that's normal for this car. The relay for the turn signals is blue with three wires going to it, and it's on a small clip to the right of the steering column on the bar that braces the dashboard. This relay is only for the turn signals. The relay for the hazards is on the convenience center panel which is also to the right underneath the steering column.

It's kind of hard to asses the problem over the web since it could be a ton of things, but hopefully this can lead you in some sort of good direction to fix the problem! I bought my 84 Z28 four months ago, and practically none of the electrical systems were working in it. I took the dashboard out, rewired everything with a new harness, put a new turn signal switch in, etc. I know this car's wiring inside and out now, so if you need anymore specific questions, feel free to PM me anytime, and I'd be happy to help you out.

Zach

 

a common problem is the installation of the wrong bulbs in the turn/park signal lamps. some of these sockets require a two prong lamp, installing the single lead lamp can short the circuits between park and turn. the single lead bulb 'shouldn't' fit, but it can sometimes be man handled in. turn signal issues corresponding with headlights on are typical of a wrong bulb-the single lead lamp is shorting power between the park signal and the turn/flasher signal.

sounds like you may have more than this going on, but check the simple stuff first.

 

Thanks for the responses, I checked the bulbs for both front and back and something is definitely wrong, I'm just not entirely sure what in this case. The bulbs in the front don't match, and neither do the back two. The front left bulb seems to have three filaments almost, sort of like the lower filament and then an upper filament that is separated by a support bar, but the front right bulb is just a standard two filament bulb. the back bulbs were both two filament bulbs, but they were differently shaped, as if both the same type but different model of bulb.

I took the steering wheel apart and accessed the switch itself, actually disassembled the switch and cleaned all the contacts, it seems to be working properly right now, but after doing these two things, now neither side flashes. I haven't looked for the relay just yet, so I'll be hunting for that today.

There is one wire that was cut from the wire leads running up to the switch, which I was able to identify as the horn wire. The horn is wired up to an after market push button mounted just under the dash, which at first glance seemed odd to me but then I glanced at the steering wheel itself and noticed that, well, with it also being after market, didn't actually have a place for a horn! So at least that mystery was solved quickly.

I actually have a theory on the dimmer switch issue, after looking directly at the switch itself. It looks like the contact strikes a spring and the current would then run through the spring reducing the power leading to the lamps inside, thus dimming them. If I'm right, then the flickering is due to bad connection to them. If I'm wrong, then the spring is just there to add resistance so the **** doesn't spin all over the place when you hit a bump. The switch is a sealed device so I cant actually open it up and attempt to clean or service it, and I have a spare switch I received when I purchased the vehicle. I tried installing the other switch but it has the same effects.

On a side note I did discover the steering column was not actually bolted down, so that is another thing entirely I'll be taking care of today.

Thanks for the input so far, hopefully once I replace the bulbs with the correct ones this turn signal problem will be over, otherwise its off to the junkyard for a switch and a relay.

Brian

 

The front signals are dual purpose (driving/signal), so they use dual filament (1157) bulbs.The rear sigs are just sigs, so they should use only one filament bulbs (1156).1157 will have two contacts on the bottom, 56s just one.Brake/tail lights use 1157, so maybe they are mixed in back.

I would think having the 1157 in the Rr sigs would draw too much current,Maybe affecting blink rate or no blink at all, just a guess though.

 

I want to thank you all for the help you were able to offer me. Problem is solved. Turns out it was multiple problems going on at once. The flasher was burnt out and after replacing the flasher everything else was working except for the front lights, so I ran out to the hardware store in replace the bulbs and tada everything was working. Thanks again so much for everyones help, I wouldn't have gotten this far if it weren't for you guys!

Brian