Wonky Turn Signal Behavior

My cluster gauge lights haven't worked since I've owned the truck (about a year). The little plastic arm on the turn signal cam snapped so I replaced the whole switch. Since the gauge lights and left turn signal was not working, I replaced all of the gauge cluster lights with new LED bulbs. After installing everything, the left turn signal was still not working so I install two new Novita LL552 flashers. Still doesn't work.

As you'll see on the following video, I am starting to get some wonky behavior: https://youtu.be/gBMexXOcvpE

1. Hazard lights work when the ignition is off; gauge hazard lights turn off when ignition is on.
2. Rear right signal works when the ignition is on; the right gauge signal does not work.
3. Rear left signal does not flash/blink but turns on with the ignition on.

I've tried swapping the old and new flashers to see if that is the issue and I get the same behavior. I am wondering if this is a wiring issue.

I appreciate your help with this matter.

bostonbronconut said:

1. Hazard lights work when the ignition is off; gauge hazard lights turn off when ignition is on.

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Yes, that's not normal. It's normal for them to work when the key is off of course, but turning the key on should have no effect.
Sounds like the dash panel and cluster are not grounded well.

bostonbronconut said:

2. Rear right signal works when the ignition is on; the right gauge signal does not work.

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Signal indicators are tied into the front turn signals, so if your fronts are not working that would be normal for the indicator to not work either.

bostonbronconut said:

3. Rear left signal does not flash/blink but turns on with the ignition on.

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The light turns on and glows solid?
Back to the flasher units, if one turn signal works, the flasher unit is good. If one hazard light works, the flasher unit is good. But the turn signal switch is where all the usual weirdness tends to start.

A side note, if you press the brake pedal with the turn signals blinking, they continue to blink on that side. If you press the brake pedal with the hazard flashers are blinking, they will stop flashing and all four should light up solid.

bostonbronconut said:

I've tried swapping the old and new flashers to see if that is the issue and I get the same behavior. I am wondering if this is a wiring issue.

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Has to be.
But a "wiring issue" can still be component related. So you have to verify that all four bulbs are good on both filaments. That all four light sockets are getting power to their proper contacts (or not), that all four are properly grounded to the body, and then that power is getting up the turn signal wiring to the switch.

But first it would be a good to check the basic grounds too. Have the battery cables been replaced and the body ground utilized? What about an added one from the back of the engine to the firewall? Did you add any new ones?
Has the Bronco been painted, or has it spent much of it's life in moist and salty environments?
And lastly, is the wiring original, or has it been replaced?

Paul

DirtDonk said:

Has to be.
But a "wiring issue" can still be component related. So you have to verify that all four bulbs are good on both filaments. That all four light sockets are getting power to their proper contacts (or not), that all four are properly grounded to the body, and then that power is getting up the turn signal wiring to the switch.

But first it would be a good to check the basic grounds too. Have the battery cables been replaced and the body ground utilized? What about an added one from the back of the engine to the firewall? Did you add any new ones?
Has the Bronco been painted, or has it spent much of it's life in moist and salty environments?
And lastly, is the wiring original, or has it been replaced?
Paul

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Re: Battery Cables - I've replaced the positive (red) cable but that is it.

Re: Engine to Firewall - I am not aware of any cables being replaced or removed (or exist for that matter).

Re: Paint - The previous owner (poorly) painted the Bronco prior to my purchase. He did spray under and behind the dash as the fuse box behind the glove compartment was painted. It spent most of the last few years in rural Michigan before I purchased it.

Re: Wiring - The majority of the wiring is original. When I first received the truck, I brought it to a mechanic to get it up to code so it could pass inspection. They had to do some wiring work to get it to start but I do not know what they have fixed.

Quick update: I started playing around with the blinkers again and turned the lights on to make sure everything is working correctly. After fiddling with the dimmer, I turned the truck OFF and the gauge lights turned on (see photo).

By any chance, could this have anything to do my messing up the wires between the new TBP turn switch and the original wiring?

bostonbronconut said:

Re: Battery Cables - I've replaced the positive (red) cable but that is it.

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Does the negative cable have a secondary smaller wire grounding to the body?
The original had a tab that bonded the main cable to the body, but that goes away when people change out the ground cable for a newer one when the old one wears out.
If you are not sure, double-check the negative and see if there is an additional connection to the body and not just the engine block.

bostonbronconut said:

Re: Engine to Firewall - I am not aware of any cables being replaced or removed (or exist for that matter).

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No, there never was one on Early Broncos from the factory. But I mentioned it in case you were able to add one since this is a key grounding point that most other vehicles of the day had. Except for Broncos for some reason.
I've always said that EB's were orphans in the Ford family. Lots of common practices got left by the wayside when they were building Broncos.

bostonbronconut said:

Re: Paint - The previous owner (poorly) painted the Bronco prior to my purchase. He did spray under and behind the dash as the fuse box behind the glove compartment was painted. It spent most of the last few years in rural Michigan before I purchased it.

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Be a good thing then to follow a "best practices" kind of theme and add some grounds of your own, and check all other contact points that you can see.
Along with that, if you have not done so already you should remove all the fuses, clean them up and then put them back in. If you see any debris or corrosion on the contact surfaces while they're out, clean those up too before you put them back in.

Few of the functions you're having trouble with are handled in the fuse panel, but having all those circuits doing their job the best they can is still a best practice.

bostonbronconut said:

Re: Wiring - The majority of the wiring is original. When I first received the truck, I brought it to a mechanic to get it up to code so it could pass inspection. They had to do some wiring work to get it to start but I do not know what they have fixed.

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Well, hard to say what is going to fix it at this point, but it sounds like you might run into some creative wiring practices while you're hunting down these gremlins.
Keep your eyes open for anything that does not look right.

How long ago did you get it? And has it acted up every since, or is it just something new that has cropped up?

Paul

Thank you for all your help thus far, Paul

DirtDonk said:

Does the negative cable have a secondary smaller wire grounding to the body?
The original had a tab that bonded the main cable to the body, but that goes away when people change out the ground cable for a newer one when the old one wears out.
If you are not sure, double-check the negative and see if there is an additional connection to the body and not just the engine block.

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As you'll see on the attached photos, there is a ground attached to the negative terminal on the battery and is connected to the front of the engine.

DirtDonk said:

Be a good thing then to follow a "best practices" kind of theme and add some grounds of your own, and check all other contact points that you can see.
Along with that, if you have not done so already you should remove all the fuses, clean them up and then put them back in. If you see any debris or corrosion on the contact surfaces while they're out, clean those up too before you put them back in.

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I've already cleaned out two of the fuses but I have not cleaned out the contact points yet.

Re: Grounds - Per your previous message, the wiring behind the dash is very much so a rats nest. I've been trying to troubleshoot this issue without removing the cluster but I might need to do it to figure out what grounds existing and opportunities to create new ones.

Is there anything, in particular, I should be looking for and/or what should have contact points?

DirtDonk said:

How long ago did you get it? And has it acted up every since, or is it just something new that has cropped up?

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I've had the Bronco for a year now. It is hard to say when all of this started up but I know the gauge light issue has been a few months, if not more.

Thanks for the pics.
That is an "adequate" location for the main ground cable, but a best-practices location would be lower on the block itself, as close to the starter motor as you can reasonably get it. Makes the cable a little longer, but more efficient for it's most power hungry accessory.
But Ford compromised between the two and usually mounted it directly to the block, but down lower behind the alternator. Don't remember the exact bolt, but it's down there.

I'm glad you took yours off to check, because it does look a little sad there with some rust in the threads and fairly good paint still. If the bolt is rusty too, that just makes it worse.
If you have not reinstalled it already, or if you don't mind taking it off again, I would clean the threads a little bit if you can, sand some paint and rust off the mating surfaces, and use a new bolt so that the conductivity is improved.

Looks like there is an additional ground wire there on the bolt of the negative terminal. If that goes down to the body/fender/wheel well somewhere, you're good to go.
Ford never put one from the engine to the frame, or the engine to the body on Broncos. But they did on other vehicles, and starting in the '78 model year when they changed to the pickup body style, they had a ground strap from the engine to the body on Broncos as well finally.
I always tell people to add one to their Early Broncos because it was a known best-practice long before Broncos got them finally.

I'm not sure you'll find any grounds under the dash, unless that one I see now and then on the lower dash panel is factory and on all Broncos.
At the time, Ford relied heavily (too heavily, but hey, it was just a "utility vehicle" after all) on brand new metal panels all welded together for their electrical conductivity on the grounding side of things.
After 43 to more than 50 years of weather and salt and natural deterioration though, things don't flow so good. Just like us sometimes!

That's why headlights get dim, wiper motors stop working properly, dash lights go on and off and dim, radios get noisier and noisier, and all that crap we have to put up with.
Because the original "grounds" are no longer up to snuff. So adding some is never a bad idea on these old rigs.

Aside from the ground to the body from the engine, another of your own making from the body to the dash, then the dash to the cluster, can really help. Heck, I had to jumper from the body tub to a windshield frame once to get the wipers to work again!
Same vehicle had one dim headlight, and one dimmer headlight. Making a short ground jumper between the inner fender skirt over by the battery to the ground stud on the radiator core support got all lights working properly.

So you can see, it's hard to have too many grounds. They may, or may not have anything to do with your current issues, but they can't hurt and will allow you to track down an actual problem much easier for not having to wonder if there is a connectivity issue elsewhere.

Paul

Oh, and speaking of grounds... As mentioned the original dash cluster lights don't have their own ground wires. They rely on the copper "tabs" that hold the light sockets into the cluster to complete the circuit through the cluster. Which in turn is supposedly grounded through the screws that mount it to the dash. Which in turn is supposedly grounded through the mounting bolts to the body.

If any of that has been re-painted, is rusty, or the sockets themselves have just deteriorated too much, you'll get lights that don't light.
Easy enough to reach up behind and pull one out of the socket though. See what is what with a visual inspection.

Paul

When i did a similar procedure, Mine did not ground / work correctly until the speedo was screwed in.

Thanks, again, for all of the information. I am going to clean out some of threads and contact points as suggested and I'll also reconnect the cluster/speedo and test everything again. Hopefully, no news will be good news.

Happy Monday!

I screwed everything back together and it looks like most of the lighting issues have been fixed but the left-blinker is not flashing, it lights and stays solid. Two other notes:
1. The rear-left blinker lights up but does not flash; the front-left blinker does NOT light up.
2. The rear-left blinker flashes when the hazard switch is turned on; the front-left blinker does NOT light up when the hazards are on.

Also, and this is super fun, the speedo is no longer working! I've tried (re)connecting it a few times and it didn't solve the issue. I've only tried fixing this on the gauge-side and not by the engine.

Maybe pull the front left bulb out again and test the bulb and inspect the contacts in the socket.
Verify that there is 12v coming in on the contact points, and renew the ground wire from there to the body.

Paul

I pulled the bulbs out of the front blinkers and there was a ton of grease on the socket and on the bulb; I cleaned those off but didn't remove all of the grease entirely. I also unscrewed the grounds for the blinker and headlight and cleaned all contact points. After struggling with getting the bulbs back in, I flipped the switch and ALL the blinkers worked - even on the cluster gauge!

Each of the front blinker cans are starting to get pretty rusty so I'll swap those out soon.

Thank you for helping me with troubleshooting this issue!

A bad ground will drive you crazy chasing issues. I think you are almost there

DirtDonk said:

But Ford compromised between the two and usually mounted it directly to the block, but down lower behind the alternator. Don't remember the exact bolt, but it's down there.

Paul

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There is a threaded boss on the block right behind the alternator. I also grounded my alternator to that point as well.

Good layout. Thanks for that detail.
On at least some engines there is also another empty threaded hole back along the pan rail, just ahead of the starter. When I'm re-wiring from scratch I put a threaded stud in there and use that for grounds. Works great too.

I even carry studs in my wiring tool box now. I think they're probably 3/8" coarse thread, but I don't remember for sure.

Paul