I have installed this on my rustbucket. It attaches to the steering column with a hose clamp. I have cleaned the metal so I have a ground (continuity between column & unit). Everything is working but the turn signals have a steady light rather than a flash when either direction is selected. Do I have a faulty flasher (relay thing) or does the fact that my rear turn signal wires are not connected to the tail lights cause this issue?

Could be both honestly. Hook the rears up to see if that solves it. If not, then the relay is probably bad.

Don't always assume you have a good ground. An easy check for you would be to just install a temporary jumper between a known good ground and your turn signal.

Grounds are one reason Gremlins are real.


Do you have a multi-meter? Or a test light? Depending on your answer that will guide the troubleshooting process.


If you are stuck and are in BCS I can help you out over the weekend.

If you have a regular flasher, you need to hook up the rear signals

Yes I checked continuity with my multimeter set to ohms between the column & the unit. Thanks for the offer of help. I am not in the BCS.

Sweet. Hopefully that gets it.

Thanks for the help.

Hot rod turn signal? Did your left arm go missing?

This might sound nuts, but try wrapping the steering column with electrical tape to eliminate the ground. See what happens. It's been a few years since I had mine, but that worked for me if I remember correctly.

Lesson learned: make all connections before troubleshooting. Once I connected the two wires going to the taillights the flasher(either turn signal) started working. Thanks for the help AB.

https://flic.kr/p/TXNbqQ

The flasher relies on having a full load of light bulbs to work properly. This is also why regular-duty relays flash really fast when you hook up trailer lights. Too much load, and it flashes too fast.

The alternative if you are going to LED's or whatever is to find an electronic flasher relay. These have a little timing circuit in them and don't rely on the load. The timer simply turns the lights on and off no matter what is attached to the other end.

The bulbs that are used in the tail lights & yellow parking lights on the front are a two filament 1157 bulb. One filament is for lights, the other is for turn signal. On the rear everything works as it should. On the front, the parking lights don't flash with the signal unless the light switched is pulled out one notch. Pull it out two notches & it turns on the headlights & tail lights but the parking lights go off & do not work when the signal flashes. Is this how these 1960s cars were wired or did someone change some wiring around somewhere along the way?

So front parking lights don't work in any capacity unless the light switch is pulled out one notch.

Flip the bulbs in the sockets

What do you mean? As far as I can tell they only go in one way. They are the put in push down & twist type bulbs. One pin is a bit lower than the other.

Thanks! I flipped them & it seems they only go in one way or more easily go in one way over the other. Now the signals work but the lights don't. I'm getting power to the wires and the respective pins in the socket(for signals & lights), just not the filament.

This only has the two front turn signals on that front circuit, correct? No side marker lights flashing too? It sounds like a ground issue and commonly when there are side marker lights they will try to ground through another fixture causing the bulbs to alternate flashing or flash real dim.

What do the sockets the bulbs go in look like? Are they grounded? Have you clipped your test lamp to the socket to make sure socket is grounded good? The bulb obviously grounds through the socket and usually the socket has a small wire behind it's mount that is soldered to the socket and screwed to the light fixture. Over time those contacts either rot away or lose connection and the sockets are poorly or intermittently grounded. Clipping the test lamp elsewhere can lead to frustration because it circumvents the bad ground and all looks good - until you put the bulb back in!

Just a thought.

Correct, no side marker lights on the front turn signal(yellow lens parking) lights.

They are a dim light when they flash.

I will check the ground on the socket. They're a round socket with a boot on the backside. I'll look closer at the back for a ground wire. I may end up having to pull the socket out & give it a good cleaning. Thanks for the idea on ground issue.

I cleaned up the whole socket etc & that got everything working properly.

Thanks!