Help: 1955 Ford.   When I put the turn signal on during the day without headllights on everything works fine.  At night when the headlights or parking lights are on and when I put the turn signal on right or left the opposite tail light will be blinking but only very, very lightly, standing back you can see the blinking.  If I were driving behind me I would wonder which way is this guy going to turn.  Now the front parking lights work just fine.  If one is blinking the other is not.  I have the 6 volt system, negative ground.    Where do I start?      Johns55ford

JDH: 1955 Ford car, I have switched from 6 volts to 12 volts. Every thing working on 12 volts except now I have no brake lights, no turn signals. I have 12 volts at the brake cylinder. Where have I gone wrong? Turn signals worked on right hand side of car for a short time but quit.

I'd say it's a bad ground in the tail lights.  Either the bulbs are not grounding in the sockets, or the sockets themselves don't have a good ground.  With the lights off, the turn signals are grounding through the tail/park circuit.  When you power the tail lights, there is no place for the turn signal ground to go so it goes through the other tail light.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

Make up some temporary ground wires and clip them to the taillight housings and or light sockets and a good ground. Try the lights. If they work ok then its a ground problem like John says.

54 Victoria 312;  48 Ford Conv 302, 56 Bird 312
Forever Ford
Midland Park, NJ

Thanks for your replys.  Still working on the prob.  Going to do a number of different grounding.  In my post I was just looking at I have a postive battery ground not negative.  Is there any way of checking out the flasher or should I buy a new one or keep trying the grounding. 

I did hook a clip to the taillight bulb housing in the trunk and ran it to the bumper but no difference on either side.

JDH: 1955 Ford car, I have switched from 6 volts to 12 volts. Every thing working on 12 volts except now I have no brake lights, no turn signals. I have 12 volts at the brake cylinder. Where have I gone wrong? Turn signals worked on right hand side of car for a short time but quit.

The bulbs flash, so the flasher is working.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

6 volt cars are more dependent on good connections than 12 volt as any voltage drop is significant. The best thing to do is remove the nut on one of the housing studs and clean underneath it to bare metal and then replace the nut. Also make sure that you have a good earth from the battery to the body as well as to the engine. If this doesn't fix it it is the pigtails or their contact with the taiight housing. You can pull them out and earth the pigtail housing against the body to see if that fixes it.

I have in the past soldered a wire to the light fitting and screwed the other end to the body, because sometimes it is almost impossible to maintain a good earth through the taillight housing. This is because the light fittings are a push in fit in the housing.

It is easy to see what light housing is the problem, because normally it only happens when you put the indicators to the left or right. The side that doesn't cause the problem suggests that it is the other light or housing that is the problem.

Regards

Rick - West Australia
Do Y Blocks Downunder run upside down? Gravity Sucks!!

Similar problem w/my 57 Fairlane; front blinkers both light when I put on the dr side, but work properly when using the right. Guess I'll try the "find a good ground" steps and see what happens.

thanks for the info.

Mark

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

Hi guys:  I printed out all the replies from you guys and tried them, but still have the prob.  I have a couple tail light sockets from another car with the ground wire molded into the unit.  I pulled the bulbs from the tail lights, pulled the contacts forward and hooked jumpers from them and to the external socket with the ground wire.  I put a jumper on the ground wire and ran it to the bumper which is grounded to the battery through the body.  I put in new bulbs.  STILL have the prob.  I went to the front parking lights and did the same thing as I did to the tail lights, no change.  I did find a lot of corrasion in the right parking light socket and thought that would make a difference but it didn't.  Now that summer is here I am going to wait till the car goes to bed this fall and then take the light switch out of the dash and play around in there.  I can't get to the turn signal in the steering column because who ever put this car together apparently forced the horn ring on with a bent tab.  I have tried and tried to push the ring down and turn it counterwise but it doesn't budge.  I talked with Larry Witthoeft at Hershey and he said a bent tab behind the horn ring is probably my problem with trying to turn the horn ring. The only other way to get in there is break the horn ring and no way  am I breaking a spotless and like new horn ring.  I am going talk to Larry W. in October when I go Hershey about the blinking lights.  

I bought this car in 2007 on e-bay from a guy in SeaGirt, NJ.  It had been done up in mid eighties in Ohio.  Pretty good driver.

Thanks for all your help.  Till this coming fall.  JDH     Spencerport, NY

JDH: 1955 Ford car, I have switched from 6 volts to 12 volts. Every thing working on 12 volts except now I have no brake lights, no turn signals. I have 12 volts at the brake cylinder. Where have I gone wrong? Turn signals worked on right hand side of car for a short time but quit.

There is one more possibility that your battery vOltage is low. The extra load of the indicators flashing may be causing too much voltage drop. Do your headlights flicker as well. Put a vOltmeter across the battery and make sure voltAge is remaining constant. If the battery voltage flickers in time with the indicators you have an issue other than earthing. You could have scuffed wire touching ground or your flasher unit may be faulty. You also may not be charging the battery fully. The grounding problem is the first and easiest place to look, but if that doesn't fix it you have to delve deeper.

One last suggestion is to see if the problem is there with another battery hooked up via jumper leads. If it goes away it is a voltage issue.

Regards

Rick - West Australia
Do Y Blocks Downunder run upside down? Gravity Sucks!!

Like Rick mentioned low voltage/voltage drop between connections is critical. Anything over 0.1 of a volt per connection will cause a problem. Add up all the connections in the circuit plus being a 6V system you can see where you can have problems.

Dan      Kingman Az.      86409