Issue with front Marker Lights, Blinkers, Flashers

[BGBronco]

Painless wiring harness.

I recently replaced my front grille and upon replacement, lost power to (Front) Blinkers, Market Lights, Flashers. I'm assuming this is a ground issue. Before I start tearing things apart, any idea where to start looking? Thx.

 

[DirtDonk]

Yes… at your grounds.

Couple of easy ways to test that theory.
One is to pull the plug on the back of one of the headlights, turn the headlights on and check the socket with your voltmeter.
But in addition to probing the ground contact in the three-wire connector, also put the negative probe right to the negative side of the battery.
This way if you don’t get a 12V reading directly at the socket ground, but do get a 12V reading when you put the ground directly to the battery, you know you have lost the ground.

If that’s the case then you’ll need to create your own dedicated ground jumper between the core support and some other part of the body. Then you make sure that you have a ground connection between the battery and the body. Like they originally came with from the factory.

 

[BGBronco]

Yes… at your grounds.

Couple of easy ways to test that theory.
One is to pull the plug on the back of one of the headlights, turn the headlights on and check the socket with your voltmeter.
But in addition to probing the ground contact in the three-wire connector, also put the negative probe right to the negative side of the battery.
This way if you don’t get a 12V reading directly at the socket ground, but do get a 12V reading when you put the ground directly to the battery, you know you have lost the ground.

If that’s the case then you’ll need to create your own dedicated ground jumper between the core support and some other part of the body. Then you make sure that you have a ground connection between the battery and the body. Like they originally came with from the factory.

This is painful.

Zero electrical skills, including those that would allow me to intelligently use my newly acquired voltmeter. The ground points I see are clean and going to the same metal as before. I clearly have power to the headlights from my HD headlight and Painless harness. What changed to cause this problem when doing basically a direct grill swap. Thank you.

 

[DirtDonk]

No problem. We can walk through a couple of different scenarios later when I get back to my computer.
In the meantime though, if all you’ve replaced was the grill itself, then really nothing should have changed. Neither the headlights nor the turn signals ground through the grill. They all ground to the core support instead.

Sounds like either a coincidental failure, or some connection finally bit the dust.

Did you try the test I mentioned above? Pulling a plug from one of the headlights? You can do that same test for the turn signals as well.

Have you figured out the voltmeter yet? Black probe to the black marked “COM“ socket. Red probe to the other socket probably marked “VOM“ I believe. might be different and I might be remembering it wrong because it’s been a long time since I actually read the letters and not just plug it in because I’m familiar with the meter and know where it goes.

Then with the meter selected to “DCV” and a level of about 20V (unless it’s a nice meter that says it’s “auto-ranging “ or similar) look at the different colored wires coming into the headlight connector.
Don’t have my book in front of me but it seems like one of them is brown, one might be yellow or green or whatever, but the ground is probably black.

With the headlight switch all the way on put your black probe into the socket with the black wire, then use the red probe tip to check both other sockets and report what the voltage is.

 

[BGBronco]

Ok. Multiple issues resolved, 1 remaining.

Front / Side Marker Lights are working. Problems were small but many (leds on side markers were in upside down, bulbs popped out on front markers, passenger front marker wasn't ground at the grill because of new paint).

I also had an issue with my passenger LED Halo coming on with the marker lights, which seems to be related to my HD Harness red wire which was spliced into the marker light at some point, not sure why.

The remaining issue is that the front passenger blinker does not blink or flash.

 

[Steve83]

...does not blink or flash.

Is there a difference? Does the light come on? Do all the other turn signals come on & then blink/flash including the rear on that side? Is this another LED polarity issue - have you flipped the bulb? This shows the original wiring:

(click this text)

 

[BGBronco]

Is there a difference? Does the light come on? Do all the other turn signals come on & then blink/flash including the rear on that side? Is this another LED polarity issue - have you flipped the bulb? This shows the original wiring:

(click this text)

Everything works everywhere else. Marker light illuminates just doesn't blink or flash. For some reason, I thought the blinker / flasher contollers were separate.

 

[vortexchop]

Not sure if I follow 100% but I thought the side marker lights don’t normally blink? I’m guessing they could be easily wired to do so, but are you sure if they ever blinked?
I believe your halos can be wired in different ways to come on with parking lights or with your blinkers. Depends on what lights you have but I’m pretty sure you can wire them (or have them wired) whichever way you want

 

[BGBronco]

I initially had an issue with the side and front marker lights. Side marker lights are fixed, the front passenger marker / turn signal illuminates but does not blink or flash.

 

[vortexchop]

I initially had an issue with the side and front marker lights. Side marker lights are fixed, the front passenger marker / turn signal illuminates but does not blink or flash.

Do they turn on with blinker switch or just light switch

 

[vortexchop]

If it were me I would do this
Make sure rear blinker is working
If yes, maybe try swapping the front blinker bulbs. If it works, then it’s the bulb / led. If not it’s the wire, check (wiggle) connections etc see if something is loose. Just easy stuff to try since you mentioned you’re not into electrical stuff. Should be an easy fix for someone who knows electrical don’t let someone charge a bunch for that

 

[DirtDonk]

For some reason, I thought the blinker / flasher controllers were separate.

They are. The turn signal flasher is one unit, while the hazard/emergency/4-way flasher is a separate unit.
No matter what wire harness you have, they should still be two separate units in our case.

Do you only see one under there?

Paul

 

[BGBronco]

They are. The turn signal flasher is one unit, while the hazard/emergency/4-way flasher is a separate unit.
No matter what wire harness you have, they should still be two separate units in our case.

Do you only see one under there?

Paul

There are two units. They work, just not for the passenger front so it's a wiring issue, I think. Illumination yes, blinker/ flasher no.

 

[Brush Hog]

If the turn signal lights stay solid it’s a bad flasher. I went through the same issue after installing a new wiring harness thought I had done something wrong but after replacing the flasher for the third time I finally got one that worked.

 

[Brush Hog]

If the turn signal lights stay solid it’s a bad flasher. I went through the same issue after installing a new wiring harness thought I had done something wrong but after replacing the flasher for the third time I finally got one that worked.

And with LED lights it could be a flasher polarity issue which I also had

 

[DirtDonk]

Sorry I misunderstood the original problem. I didn’t realize that the driver side was working and it was only the passenger side not flashing.
Most likely a very easy problem to find and fix.