Finished wiring up my 61 with my Rebel Wire harness (great stuff!) truck has 70s style GM column. Everything went fine with harness and really doubt it has anything to do with it. Talked with RW tech the other day and thought it was figured out. I keep popping fuses on my turn signals. When it takes this fuse out it also takes out the park lights, and not always, but sometimes the brake lights. Far as I can see everything is good, no bare wires or anything silly like that. Just odd that the TS is taking out all of these other circuits. Before the TS were hooked up I didnt have issues (testing) with the others. Would it make sense that something in my TS switch is goofy enough that its screwing me up like this? Brand new switch, but I've had new stuff be bad before. Anyone have any clues? Going to get my electrical guy over this week, just trying to hunt it down myself if I can.
My buddy finished his '65 El Camino using a tilt column from a later model Chevy, so the ignition switch was in the column. He re-wired the car with a new wiring harness from GM. When he was done, nothing worked. No power to anything. Eventually, he tracked it down to the old harness in the steering column.
Some turn signal switches have a "pilot" wire -- which lights the indicator lamp on the body of the switch -- and a hot wire that goes to the flasher on your fuse panel. Check to see they're not switched.
It is your turn signal switch. All power is routed to the switch itself and then goes from there to the fuse box/turn signal canister, etc. Somehow it is shorting to ground when you turn on power to the other stuff on the column (hence burning the fuses out.. shorting to ground causes too much amperage). Either find the short in the wiring itself in the column from the switch or get rid of the grease in the signal itself it maybe shorting to ground because of it. Easy solution, at most it will be like 40-80 bucks for a new turn signal switch OR if you find the problem then just some heat shrink
If it takes out the fuse to the signals, the fuse to the park lights and sometimes the fuse to the brake lights, I would be inclined to think there is a short in the steering column. Try wriggling the wires as they run through the column and see if it blows a fuse, To save on fuses, while trouble shooting, put a circuit breaker in place of the fuse that blows, similar to the one for the headlight circuit. Also, try removing one bulb at a time and see if that changes anything, I have seen a short inside the filament that carries back to the park light circuit, but don't think that would cause fuse failure............
You can make a simple tool to diagnose a constant blowing fuse. The reason a fuse blows is because a ground is introduced before the load. So what I do is take a pigtail from a turn signal, or you can use a sealed beam headlamp bulb, and with the 2 wires coming off of the bulb, make it so they fit into where your fuse goes, one wire at each end, make sure they don't touch, or you'll be looking for smoke. The light will stay on until you remove the short whether it be a bad bulb, or connection issue. Hope this helps.
Think it could be a POS china bulb? Do like the guy said remove all the bulbs and try iy. If it works install one bulb at a time. Hard to find good bulbs around here.
The turn signal switch and all of the column wiring is new. The TS bulbs are the ones that were in it before the rewire. tail lights are new LED ones that I just put in maybe they are causing issues. I guess ill throw some regular 1157s in it and see if that makes a difference. If not then I'' have to yank the steering wheel and start digging. Thanks guys.
what do you mean by "not always but sometimes it take out the brake lights"? that sometimes the brake light fuse blows as well?
Yeah, was blowing brake light fuse and park light fuse on occasion as well. Watched as my left turn signal always worked, and right turn was at random. Finally pulled the column apart and found out that the dumb*** (me) that installed the TS switch had pinched the **** out of the wires and the right turn wire had visible copper poking out. Have a new TS switch on the way. will be installed tomorrow.
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