Technical Turn Signal Question - 53 Chevy

Hi all,

Quick question. I suspect I have a bad turn signal switch on my 53 Chevy. With the ignition off if I press on the brake pedal and hold it with a piece of wood and turn the turn signal lever down, the left side goes off and the right side stays off as well. If I turn the turn signal lever up, the right side goes off but the left side stays on. If I put the turn signal back to center position, both brake lights come on. Occasionally I put the lever back to center but it's off a little and neither brake light comes on. I believe the lever mechanism is original and doesn't snap to each position like on a modern car.

I was just going to buy a new turn signal switch. I pulled the steering wheel off but haven't checked further.

Would electrical contact cleaner be a waste of money for $8. My guess is I need a new switch but thought maybe someone would have encountered similar behavior.

Thanks.

New switch for 53/54 is 6 wire

 

No need to buy contact cleaner. But you can get in there and look at stuff, see if the mechanism is working as it should, and you can remove the switch (or just slide it up a ways and leave the wiring in the column!) and bend the tabs, and remove the metal cover, being careful not to lose the springs and contacts when it "explodes". Then spend some time cleaning up the contacts, add a tiny bit of grease, put it back together, and see if it works better. Or just by a new switch, and install it, and hope it works ok, since it was probably made in China.

 

I agree with squirrel, rebuilding the switch is the way to go if you can because it is of much higher quality than repro parts generally speaking.

 

Thanks,
I'm going to take the mechanical ***embly out and then manually change the position of the turn signal switch with a screwdriver and see what happens. I may wait until next week to crack the switch open or I might end up with the car being undriveable if I can't put it back together and roommate's Christmas stuff has to go back in the garage soon.

Anyone think this might be China made?

http://www.cl***icparts.com/1954-56-Turnsignal-Cup-***embly/productinfo/53-531A/#

 

probably.

This is a one hour job, tops....seriously...it's not a big deal. And you can just leave the switch off, put the steering wheel back in, and drive the car just fine. Turn signals were an option back then, 53 was the first year they used that swich in Chevys. It was used in cars thru 57 (with a different housing starting in 55), and in trucks from 53-59, with that housing, although the hole for the lever was enlarged in 57, to work with the angled lever they used when the steering wheel was changed to the deep dish design.

yes, I know way too much about this stuff.

 

Wow thanks, impressed with how knowledgeable you are. I'll give it a try then and post more photos and video.

 

This may help out some

D2-53 guide turnsignal removal and recondition http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...de-turnsignal-removal-and-recondition.961297/

 

Thanks I just read that. I will refer to your post as I take mine apart. One issue is that someone used crimps to connect the turn signal switch wires. To make matters worse the wires seem to have been painted when the steering column, etc was painted in 2009 by the previous owner's body shop.

 

The only thing I forgot, if I crack the turn signal switch open and can't put it together I may not have brake lights. I don't mind driving without turn signals but not without brake lights. I may wait until I'm certain the car won't have to leave the garage for anything.

 

just connect the white wire to the pink and purple wires, and the brake lights will work.

 

The first thing I'm going to do is fix the connections to the turn signal switch. As I said before someone used **** connectors. I thought you might remember from experience, do I need the smaller spades or the bigger one that is the same size as on the flasher? I'm also debating whether to make my own custom 6 pin Molex connector but maybe better to keep it standard so I can change the turn signal switch in the future without modifications.

The other thing, I have no idea how long the stock turn signal switch wires should be. My guess is to make the connections as far up as I can and if I need to drop a new turn signal switch I can always use cable ties to hide the excess.

 

With wire lengths, I tell everyone that it's easier to lose (dress-in) an extra 1" of wire than to be short that 1". This goes for 2" or 3" as well. I usually route the wiring and give extra wire in case I have to wire it again in the future.

I keep it absurdly simple when I wire anything and make a quick diagram so I can go back to it if I have to.

Keep the terminal size in line with the wire gauge it is intended for. Yellow, 10-12, blue 14-16, red 18-22. It is better to use a larger wire in a smaller terminal, but not the other way.

 

Thank you. I'm going to use the wiring that's already in there and just cut and then add the spade terminal male and female connectors. I imagine the gauge is somewhere between 14 and 16 but I might be able to get away with the red terminals. What I'm not sure on is the size, the narrower or wider ones.. I have two shown in my photo in my previous post.

 

Those terminals look bulky but they are 18-22 gauge. The problem with smaller wires in bigger terminals is that the wires can pull out. You can double the wire over (cut it 2x longer) but it is not a recommended practice.

I do see the Molex connector and crimp tool. Will all the wires fit into it, do you have an existing steering column connector?

 

Sometimes I will take a soldering iron and reinforce after crimping a spade connector so they can't pull out as easy. The wires will fit into the Molex connector and I have ones that are for 16 gauge and for the 18-22 gauge and even smaller. I will create more work though if I need to put a stock turn signal switch since it has the spade ends.

 

I swear by crimp connectors and used them almost exclusively when I wired my Ford. The trick is to use a quality crimp tool, not one of those stamped out ones. I got a good one at Advance Auto Parts.

If your switch has the terminals, just get the mates to those, guaranteed to fit. Just make sure you have good strain-relief on the wires, meaning they won't be stressed and possibly either un-mate the connections or pull on the wires.

 

Makes sense. It seems someone cut off the spade ends and used **** connectors to splice in. So I'm basically adding spade connectors (male and female) in order to keep it standard so I can put a stock one in later if I need to. I'm also doing this because I want to take the switch out now and take it apart and clean it and I want to carefully do this on my desk not inside the car where springs, etc could pop out.

 

There's no problem with doubling the wire into a larger terminal as long as you do a correct 100% crimp. It's not something that's a preferred method so only do so where absolutely needed. I'd rather see that than t******* a large wire into a smaller terminal. The main issue I see is you're using insulated crimps; it's impossible to get a 100% crimp with those without damaging the insulation. I will ONLY use uninsulated crimps for this reason, then apply shrink tube. For tail/brake light wiring, I wouldn't go smaller than #14.

 

Thanks, good point, even better. I have tons of heat shrink and more of the un-insulated spade crimps.

 

I guess you can make this project take all week, after all. Sorry.

 

Oh no worries I want to take my time to fix things right since it's not a daily driver and there's no rush.

 

I was able to pull the switch out a little and take half of it apart without an explosion of springs/contacts. I had greased this up last year and it worked better but could never get it to stick to center, right and left positions. I think the problem is that the lever isn't going to one of the three positions cleanly and as a result it is somewhere in between causing different behavior than desired with the contacts and no/live connections.




I took the switch parts out and cleaned them up really well.



I took this from your other thread:



I haven't looked at this mechanical ***embly in detail yet but are points A and B where the mechanism kind of clicks/locks when moving the lever to the up or down position? Center position seems to be the worst for mine where it doesn't seem to click/lock. At times when I am slightly off center the brake lights wont come on at all when pressing the pedal.

Another thought. The previous owner had the car painted and the body shop took the steering wheel off and sprayed. Didn't even do a decent job covering anything and maybe the mechanism has been stickier since. I'm guessing I need to clean and then sand off all that paint and maybe re-grease. Mine says 5942923 on the back. I wonder if it is even from this car!




Last thought is maybe the contacts and the br*** surfaces (on the side I didn't take out) are worn a bit and not flat when the switch moves to different positions. The little pieces I cleaned up don't look too bad but the br*** surfaces might be uneven. Perhaps I need to sand them all flush.. not sure.

Lastly, I didn't see any crush washer under the mechanism so it is missing.

 

It all looks pretty nice. One thing I noticed is that the housing is egg shaped, which is very common...the clamp slips, so it get tightened, over and over..the housing is pot metal, and it distorts easily.

There are only two of the mechanism rings, that I know of, 53-54 cars and 53-56 trucks use the one you have, for the straight lever, and 57-59 trucks use the other one, with the angled lever.

One other problem is that sometimes the lock washer is missing, between the pivot screw, and the housing. It goes below the actuating ring. It's an odd size, #12 I think. Does yours have a washer that is too large? it has to fit inside the little recess around the threaded hole, not overlapping it.

 

Looks like there is a washer in your picture under the mechanism. The picture with the pliers.

A and B don't "click" it is the part with the wires coming out of it that is what clicks. To me it sounds like you need to replace that part.


Edit...
Jim types quicker than I do

 

The switch itself does not have any detents in it. The "clicking' is supposed to be done by those little pivoting ears.

 

Thanks, not sure why it wasn't clicking. I guess I did pull out a washer under the mechanism and you can see it on a paper towel in one of my photos. I pulled this out yesterday in semi-dark conditions so I didn't snap a good clear shot of it.

I may have to put the mechanism back on and study it to see why it wasn't clicking. It doesn't feel like it's stuck when playing with it on my desk. The parts don't spin super freely but they aren't really binding. There is a spring type washer on the pivots where the ears are. This causes the ears to move a little less freely due to friction at the pivot. Its hard to see but its sandwiched between each ear and the long metal piece that acts as a spring. I don't think that is the problem.



Do you think problems with clicking/snapping into positions could be from a distorted housing?

 

I dont have a canceling cam on the back of my steering wheel (previous owner or body shop must have lost it), however I bought one.

Out of curiosity are the arrows in orange pointing to arms that are for the canceling mechanism?

 

yeah, the little pivots are for cancelling.

Having a distorted housing can cause it to not want to "click' into position like it should.

 

Thanks, im going to clean it a little more and put the mechanism back on and see if I can find anything obvious. I bet its a distorted housing like you said.. darn.....

 

Some of them work good, some don't work so good. The signals in my son's 59 truck never worked very well. The ones in my 57 suburban work great. The new reproduction switch ***emblies, I don't, know if they work right or not. Might ask around?