Fast Turn Signal

[Case500D]

This past weekend I spent a fair amount of time rewiring my wife's (I mean our) horse trailer. Well I hooked up to the ol' Dodge and dang if I didn't start blowing fuses. It was 8:30 in the pm and dark. After I unhooked the trailer lights and replaced the fuses, the turn signals act weird. It starts out nice and slow and then speeds up. It blinks so fast it is hard to tell if it is really blinking. Any ideas?



Also, on the trailer, I keep having problems with the hazard lights and the brake (stop) lights. THey are on the same circuit. I can't figure out why the fuses keep blowing. I can't find a ground anywhere and have ran all new wire with all soldered conections. I can use other trailers and not have any light problems. Also I have very good grounds on the truck and trailer. Any more ideas? Thanks for the help.

 

[Bigramguy]

Sounds like you may have damaged the turn signal flasher,and that why it's flashing funny.



If you can hook up to another trailer,and the light all work fine,then the truck wiring should be OK. Probably your trailer wiring is suspect. For lights,you should have three wires,one for tail\running lamps (usually brown),and two for stop\turn (left is yellow,and green is right),plus one good sized ground wire (white). The hazard (and turn),share the circuit for the brake lights. If It is blowing fuses,then you have a wire crossed,a wire grounded,or possible a bad light socket or bulb. Also check the grounding of your rear lamps,and the condition of the sockets. If they are not grounded they will ground through the other circuit in the bulb,causing a high current draw,and will blow fuses.

 

[paccool]

Bigramguy is right about the grounds. I've had all my running lights flashing before and it turned out to be a ground problem in one of the rear brake light circuts.

 

[forr]

I would second the above - sounds like your flasher relay is bad - this will certainly cause the turn signals to flash faster or even not at all.



However - if you're running a gooseneck with a standard seven pin hookup, I've found it easiest to make sure the truck is working right first - Hooking up to a trailer you know is working sure does the trick, but if you can't - a test light will tell you if all is well at the rear of the truck.



How old is the trailer wiring?



The reason I ask is that you may end up trying at length to track down a short in the trailer wiring. With old farm trailers and dump trucks we've found that $60 worth of new wiring and loom can replace hours of searching. Odds are if the wiring is old, you may want to replace it anyway to avoid future headaches.



Hope this helps.

 

[CToney]

Make sure you're using a HD electronic flasher a mechanical one with flash rapidly. Like the other guys said check grounds. Make sure that the hot wire(s) are not accidentially connected to the ground circuit on lights. Such was the case when I was fixing the wiring on my sister's horse trailer. Good Luck



CR Toney