Need Electrical Advice

[Stag72]

First of all I am terrible at diagnosing electrical gremlins, but I have a few.

Gremlin 1 - Last year I installed a Centech wiring harness, and since then I have not had a right rear turn signal. The front right turn signal works, and right brake light works, along with all other lights. If I turn on the right turn signal and apply the brakes the front right signal comes on solid, and both brake lights go out, running lights stay on. Also if the key is off, and the right turn signal is on and brakes applied it will light the front right signal solid, and send power to my radio. Problem existed before the radio was installed. I have cleaned the grounds at the light sockets, replaced the turn signal switch and light switch, and run out of ideas.

Gremlin 2 - This one is a little more annoying. Some times I have no power at all, lights ignition, nothing. I replaced the starter sylenoid, and voltage regulator. If I jump power directly to the starter motor, even with the key off so the engine won't fire, and crank it over for a second it returns all power and functions fine for a while.

Any ideas on either of these problems would be great, thank you.

Joe

 

[DirtDonk]

Hey Stag, welcome! Sorry to hear your having trouble. Good thorough description though. Should help a lot.
Funny too, but someone just posted up of another right light problem, and happens to be running a Centech as well.
Maybe, if we can figure out one of them, we can fix both of them.

Can you verify that you've got the correct wires going to the correct contacts in the light sockets? Just in case.
Grounds to both buckets still good on the body? Sounds like they're ok since the taillights work, but it never hurts to pull them and check. Then clean the body and re-install.
Try swapping bulbs too.

My first thought was the turn switch, but you say you've replaced it. Not unheard of at all, to get a bad one out of the box, but for now we'll "assume" it's good.

With the bulb out, can you measure pulsing voltage at the socket? If not, then the problem is somewhere between the switch and the socket. And since the wire and socket work for the brake light, then it has to be in the steering column or switch.

What about the emergency flasher switch? Could any of the wires be crossed?
Yours is a '72? I'll have to go look at the diagrams to see if anything jumps out at me.

Good luck. Maybe Viperwolf (local electrical wizard) will have some suggestions.

Paul

 

[DirtDonk]

Regarding the power loss, the only way I see that happening is if the connection at the starter relay is bad, or there is a problem between there and the back of the fuse panel.

Are you using the fusible link wire that Centech provided? Another type of fusible link or breaker perhaps? Double-check them and replace if even suspect by a dark burned looking color to the wire.

Look under the dash at the back of the fuse panel too, to see if anything is laying against the exposed back of the circuits.

Do you have too many grounds? No such thing actually, but if you don't have enough main grounds, you might occasionally have hard-to-diagnose issues.
Should be the main one to the engine block, another, smaller main one to the body, one from the engine to the body, and one from either of those to the frame.
Hard to have too many, and Ford didn't supply enough on the original Broncos.

Paul

 

[Viperwolf1]

#1 Something is not wired correctly. I would look at the column connector for the problem. What year is it?

#2 Could be bad ground between engine and battery. Could be bad connection from solenoid to main power wire (usually connected to battery side of solenoid).

 

[Stag72]

It is a 72.

Thanks for the advice, the only ground I have is from the battery to the block, I will add the others you suggested. The hazards work properly, all 4 flash, stop flashing when brakes applied.

I will have to double check the connections in the steering column, hopefully thats where the problem is.

 

[Brimstone]

we had the same problem for the last two days with the same CENTECH. It ended up being the ground at the light. Suggest you ground the wire between body and the light case. With a terminal we had no problem.

Good luck