Re: Restoring Rusty
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so back in December of 2018 I gave my truck a proper gauge overhaul by completely abandoning the factory OEM circuit board based cluster and it's accompanying analog gauges in favor of the Intellitronix (pronounced: cheapest) digital ones, and for the most part I have been happy with them.
The most part is comprised of me being 100% happy with the Volt, Fuel, Oil, and Temp quartet (other than should have gone with white instead of the green display) these little guys have been completely headache free. However I can't say the same thing for the larger Speedo and Tach. First they arrived not properly assembled right off the bat, then I sent them back for free repairs and one came back glued back on crooked, and I spent a year trying to get them to work reliably (would wig out with the blinkers and or headlights on) , which I finally managed to do by running completely separate ground leads for each these two gauges absolutely did not like to share their grounds no matter what, although ultimately the leads go to the same ground bolt under the dash, go figure. In addition to the gauges I also built my own warning lights, simple stuff a red brake light (that never works) a yellow Check Engine Light, a blue high beams light, and two green turn signal lights. These lights is what we are going to focus on today, as they have their own story. |
Re: Restoring Rusty
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so I am on the home stretch with this truck and this is simply about tying up loose ends, so let me list the electrical issues as of this [ahem] ... morning, ha ha
1. the original green turn signal LEDs glow white not greenso I ordered a second set of these LEDs from All Electronics and am ready to do some touch ups couple observations since I first installed them, they are plastic, so they are pretty flimzy especially the threads on the barrel as you try and screw on the backing o ring type of thing, second, their male blade connectors are so tiny that I think I finally found the proper female ends to go on them, I think they are the 3 mil ones and not the 1/4" etc Note: I solder all my connections to ensure proper connectivity so these being plastic sucks, as they tend to heat up and melt a bit just enough for the male blade connector to sink back into the plastic housing, cry me a river, right?! |
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I think the turn signal light staying solid and not flashing means an open in the circuit. Such as a bulb being burnt out. Or if it’s the left aide that dim fender bulb Could be the culprit. Posted via Mobile Device |
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I have three also. I’m not allowed to sell any of them. My kids have claimed and named my trucks. Not as eloquently as your naming scheme mind you but named nonetheless. There’s the “off road truck” 72 K10, “the new truck” 86 K30 crew and “the new new truck” 88 crew. Posted via Mobile Device |
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I have a couple more. The Nukon. Because when I sold our Yukon and bought an Escalade... Escalade wasn’t nearly as catchy as the New Yukon which eventually was abbreviated to simply The Nukon. Posted via Mobile Device |
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so got the ol' gauge cluster on the AW-WB (Absent Wife - Work Bench) and I like to use stainless pots as a soldering aid but you do you, if teflon is your thing, use teflon, I really don't care
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Public Service Announcement: these hard plastic shielded butt connectors are the worst, do NOT use them, ever !!!
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well found one problem with the Red brake light, it was bad plug in that short pig tail between the harness and the proportioning valve, this is the last piece I would have guessed would have failed, there are absolutely no moving pieces in this thing, yet it did
I honestly do not get the purpose of this 9" pig tail, why not just run the harness directly to the switch on the valve itself, which is what I did of course my fix worked in testing but stopped as soon as I put the dash all back together, LOL Lesson Learned: when it works it does NOT turn on with the key ON, it does however come on momentarily as you crank the engine over in the START position, then goes out again, makes sense I guess, not sure the juice is worth the squeeze on this one, if I were to re wire / re gauge another truck I would not bother with the red brake light I would not install one, not worth the headache |
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now as far as my Left (aka driver side) turn signal problem, technically it ain't a turn signal problem, the turn signals work fine, all of them
the problem is the parking light or what ever you want to call it, the left aka driver orange parking light in the left fender does NOT come on here are the facts: 1. there is a light brown wire that runs from the black square bulk head connector on the firewall to both the left and the right side parking lightsTROUBLESHOOTING teach me something because my testing shows I am a total ignoramous I thought the light blue and the dark blue wires were supposed to be positive and when touched to ground with a test light the test light should illuminate, but that is not what happens in my case, the opposite is true, the light comes on when with an alligator clip on the light or dark blue wires when I touch the pointy end of the test light to the positive terminal on the battery, but whatever I think the blue wires are for the turn signals and those seem to work now the brown wire I assume is the common wire for the parking lights both left and right, so I don't get why I get no signal / power in it at the left fender, I think I need to unwrap it all all the way back to the bulk head and examine every inch for splice-atalogy problems |
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It's not a good sign when the task does not even receive a fun level rating. Good luck man.
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I'm glad to see that Rusty is getting some love.
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EUREKA !!! I finally figured out my left side marker (parking light) problem. FOUR YEARS later.
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full report @ 11:00 |
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so basically in order to fix this Parking Light
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... we had to replace a perfectly good in working order light bulb in this Parking Light
We will just file this repair in our "I hit myself in the head with a hammer cause it feels good when I stop" folder and collectively move on. |
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Wait, what? Inquiring minds want to know how I fingered it out?
Alright, after all you are under quarantine, or as I like to call it a captive audience, ha ha so on a serious note I want to share what I went through because it can actually help somebody out and maybe knock off a year or two off the time it takes to fix this, ha ha Here's how I went about it. I wanted to figure how these lights worked and not just hack at it until it worked. The first thing you need to do is figure out how a component works, in this case what each wire does. This was simple enough as the pig tail in question only had two pig tails, a light blue wire and a brown wire. Now here's a Top Tip: when trying to figure out how something works, doing so when it is broken is definitely not the time to do it. Lucky for us we had another turn signal / marker just like this one on the other side in working order, so we employed our Stare and Compare methodology. this allowed us to quickly pick up on the fact that although each light had a different color blue wire (drive side light blue, passenger side dark blue) they each shared the same brown wire, this allowed us to Divide and Conquer even further. |
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since the turn signals were working we focused on the brown wire, to simplicate things even further and eliminate the fuse panel and the light switch, I removed the bulk head connector off the firewall and alligator cliped a power lead from the battery positive terminal directly to the brown wire pin on the back side of the bulkhead connector - and watched three of the four marker lights illuminate
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after poking and probing with a test light and things not making sense I decided to yank the front marker light (the one below the headlight) and stare at it
this one made sense, in addition to the brown wire which we know sends the parking light signal, and the light blue wire which is the left turn signal signal (ha ha) it had a third wire, unlike the side marker light, it had a black wire which was the GROUND! now that makes sense color wires send the +++++ pluseses and the GROUND carries the ----- minuses (I know that's not how electricity actually flows, so please don't call the Electrode Police on me just yet I is just explaining things) so how the hewk does our little guy in the fender get it's ground? he don't have a metal housing so it cant be contact with the sheet metal |
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why it has to be getting it's ground through the light blue wire somehow, there is no other choice
so I poked at it some more with my test light and nothing, so once again I went to the working side and sure enough with the test light alligator clip connected to the battery positive terminal when I poked at the dark blue wire connector inside the socket it acted as a ground and the test light lit up so back I went to the bad side and hooked up a long black wire lead from the battery negative terminal to an exposed section of the light blue wire at a Y junction as a temporary bypass and sure enough the side marker parking light came on - SAY WHAT? I know right it don't make no sense, but now we knew how to make it work so lets press on |
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so here's what we knew at this point
1. both side and front left marker lights need a ground to functionso how do we send a ground signal from the front market light with the ground wire to the side marker light? answer: via the stinkin' light bulb somehow in some way the light bulb takes the ground signal from the front marker light and shares it with the side marker light via the light blue wire (I honestly still don't understand this magic, but I accept it) I also do not comprehend why a good working light bulb was insufficient to send the ground signal, but a different one of the same model number was I even cleaned it thinking it was dirty contacts and no dice, when I moved the bulb from the working side to the non working side it would work, when I went the other way it would not, luckily I found another working bulb in my stash pic of a bulb that would not work though it matched the working bulb exactly, this is the one I cleaned the contacts on after taking the pic |
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Gee.... I wonder why it took you 4 years to figure out. The solution was clear as mud.
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Impressive, nice work; I'll definitely try and hold on to this gem in my memory bank!
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If I remember correctly, the side marker and the front signal flash in an alternating pattern, right?
If so, I would think the side marker gets its ground from the front signal bulb when it is NOT activated. Therefore is lit when parking lights/headlights are on giving power to the side marker and ground thru the Front signal bulb. When front signal is activated, the ground goes to the front signal bulb to light it and stops at the side marker. Therefore alternating the flash. Side, Front, Side Front, etc. |
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I think the ground for lights are right at radiator support or was that the Trans Am. I am pretty sure the grounds are right under the where the fender attaches.
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I also tested the turn-signal flasher has 2 prongs and it has 12 volts power on one side and, when activated, will flash 12 volts power to the other side. seems like there would have to be a full time ground somewhere. |
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The factory wiring makes the side markers alternate with the front turns.
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The side marker grounds through the signal lamp except when the signal lamp is powered.
Light Blue is LH Turn power Dark Blue is RH Turn power Brown is Parking lamp power The peanut bulbs in the side markers are connected from one of the blue wires to a brown wire. The 1157 bulb is the only one that's connected directly to a ground. It's behavior is more complex than I stated originally. The side marker and front turns alternate when the parking lamps are on. They operate in sync when they are off. The 168 peanut bulb in the side marker lamp actually has two hot leads when the turns and parking lamps are powered so it shuts off. When the turnsignal flasher is in the off part of its' cycle or just plain off there's a path to ground through the turnsignal filament so the side marker bulb lights. Slick way to get a single filament bulb and two wires to do the job of a two filament bulb with three wires. |
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