Parking/turnsignal from 1 wire?

Rewiring the car after painting, the last things not working are the front turnsignal/parking lights. These are repro Harley taillight units-one wire/one filament bulbs. I could SWEAR that before disassembly they worked for both parking and turnsignals, but now,I only get the signals.

I'd sure appreciate anyone's thoughts on making this work without yielding to a lot of work changing the bulb sockets to an 1157 and running dual wires. Any magicians out there?

 

When you painted did you lose a ground?

 

It can't work like that.....you need two filaments. Maybe it didn't really have park lights before.

 

Signal-Stat model 800 add on turn signal switch will do that, what switch do you have?

 

I'm not sure-it's rather buried in the circuits I didn't touch in the rear fender space-seems to work by magic. I think Squirrel's right,don't think I've lost a ground-there are only three wires running along the frame to the lights-green/brown for the headlights, blue for the Harley's-ground through the body of the light.

 

You can go to the big box auto chains, they sell replacement single contact and dual contact socket repair pigtails. Cut your single contact out, slide in a dual contact and splice it in. Easy as pie.

 

Newer cars in some instances have a wiring design that works like your asking. I believe the bmw x5 and I know the 09+ VW tiguan suvs are that way.

I believe the term is PWM, pulse width mod.......something.

There is clearly only one filament and wire serving both functions. It gets smaller voltage for tail lights and larger voltage for brake lights/turn lights.

I've ran across this as soon as last week on wiring up a vw for a hitch.

I don't really know hoe to apply it to your situation though.

 

Parking lamps up front are not necessary, live with working turn signals which are necessary.

 

They made a module for the rear of bikes that convert one wire lights to parking/turn/brake lights but it would probably be easier and cheaper to change the sockets

 

I agree but I am not sure that's legal in PA. Think I'll be looking into a socket change. Thanks.

 

If you aren't sure you might check. I have heard of a number of states that don't require parking lights, including the one where I live.

 

You should be able to fix it with two diodes set up to keep the power from one source from feeding back to the other source. The only problem I see with that is that they won't flash when the park lights are on.

Still, read your state laws as most states don't require park lights that stay on or side marker lights pre 1968 as the cars and trucks up through the mid 60's didn't come with park lights that were on when the headlights were on.

 

Ditto, Swap sockets and go with 1157 lamps. Quick and easy, and it works.

4TTRUK

 

Got it. I took the lights apart, removed the internal brackets and switched out the sockets for some others that take a double filament base,then reassembled them and found the second,detached supply wire hidden in the harness. Rewired,put back together and all is well. Thanks for the help. That was the last non-working sytem and now I can put the new dash together and bolt 'er up.