Duster turn signal quirks....help?

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Dusterdude72

Dusterdude72

IN MOPAR MUSCLE MAGAZINE
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ok ill try to sum this up as short as I can.

so I have been restoring my duster and within the last month I got all my wiring put in the car and got the car running and driving and all that good stuff and everything was working correctly.

well today I noticed with my KEY OUT OF IGNITION....if I turn my headlights on my right turn signal indicator was on (not the turn signal itself).....then later it was just the left doing it.......then later on in the day it was both of them doing it.

also,with head lights on and KEY OUT OF IGNITION, if I flip my turn signal on both left or right that turn signal lamp will come on and stay on until I turn the turn signal lever back to its neutral position.

ALSO.....when I turn my IGNITION FORWARD and then flip my turn signal lever to either left or right.....my signals work as they should.

NOW.....I unhooked both of my front turn signal wires at the lamps and when I did.....both of my indicators on my dash shut off and everything seems to be working as it should.

I have not had a chance to take a look at it and I am fairly certain all my grounds are good and that all my wiring is good.

I do not have my rear signal bulbs hooked up at the moment....but I don't see how that would have anything to do with it since everything was working fine until today.

I am sure I can get it figured out , but I wanted to bring it up here real quick and see if anyone else has had an issue like this and can give me a good starting point to look at from a similar experience .

Thanks in advance guys
 
Check the ground of your dash frame. When you turn on the headlights the dash lights also come on. If you have an bad ground on the dash frame it will use the turn signal indicator light to establish a path to ground for the instrument cluster. (Bad ground can also do bad things to the instruments due to the instrument voltage regulator losing ground and putting out to much voltage - fried gauges!)
 
This applies to all makes... Current will seek a ground. If the park lamp current feeds back to the dash indicaters the problem is lost chassis ground at the front park/turn fixtures.

p.s. If the instrument panel wasn't grounded those lamps wouldn't work. Nothing on it would work.
 
Thanks for chiming in guys...

I have my dash frame grounded to the steering column as it should be and I also have my head light harness grounded at the core support and also just for the heck of it I ran an extra ground from the back of the head to the master cylinder mounting bolts to see if I could get anything to change and still no luck.

Ill have to look at it more today, I am sure I can get it figured out I just have to look the car over real good and check everything out.

all the dash wiring is connected so I do not think it would have anything to do with that.
 
I had a 70 Duster that had the same symptoms. Sold the car before I traced it out.
Here are my thoughts.
Make sure all bulbs are good (completes the circuit)including parking lights.
Make sure all grounds are good.
Make sure your turn signal module (inside steering wheel) is good.

On the ground issue,
Arent the parking lamps 1 wire,and ground to the fenders ?
Make sure they have a clean ground,and are installed correctly.
Any corosion should be cleaned off,with steel brush..ect.

Will be following this. Let us know what you find.
 
I messed around with it for a bit and still no luck.

I have wiggeld,tugged and pulled on wires to see if I could get anything to change and with no luck.

I tried regrounding my harness ground and no luck.

I unplugged the front marker lights and ran a new ground directly to the ground side of the plug in and then plugged the lights back in and then my marker lights/turn signals were working as they should BUT then my indicator on my dash would stop working for that side.

its an odd little problem that is going to bug the crap out of me until I fix it.

here is a basic run down again of what the problem is.

I turn my marker lights on (first "click" on my headlight knob)....both turn signal indicators come on and there is no front marker lights on (even though they should be since its in the marker light position)......same thing happens when I pull the switch all the way out to turn headlights on......HEADLIGHTS WORK FINE THOUGH.

with the headlight switch on in either the marker light position or headlight position and the key in the OFF poistion.....I can turn my turn signal to either the left or right and that designated signal will come on and stay on until I move the turn signal arm back to its neutral position and this is all with the KEY OFF (should be no turn signal juice at all with the key off).

with the headlight switch on in either the marker light position or headlight position and the key in the ON position.... both my turn signals indicators are lit up just as they were in the off position.....with the only difference being as that now when I turn my turn signal lever to either the left or the right....that designated signal will blink just as it should (but slower than it should).

when I unhook the front marker lights harness's ...both turn signal indicators go off on my dash.....then when I turn the key to the ON position I can turn my turn signal lever to either the right or the left position and that designated turn signal indicator will blink just as it should.

I ran a test light at the plug ins of the marker light harness's and I grounded and when hook up to the positive and negative wires of the harness with the headlight/marker lights on ....I get a dim light....BUT when I move my ground to a direct ground,the light gets bright..... which is what gave me the idea to run a separate ground like I mentioned above in this post but by doing so it made my turn signal indicators not function any more.

my rear lights all work as they should.

I personally went through all this wiring before installing in the car and I replaced all bad wires with new wires and soldered them in and shrink wrapped them so I highly doubt its a fault of the work I did.....and what boggles me more is that it was all working fine and then out of the blue it started pulling this crap.

sorry for the long post guys and I am sorry if it is hard to follow exactly what the problem is (im confused to LOL) im trying to explain what the deal is as best as I can and hopefully someone who has had a similar problem will stumble accross this and point me in the right direction.

normally I am pretty darn good with electrical but every once an while this dumb little wiring issues come along that trip me up LOL.

thanks in advance to anyone that can help me out!
 
This got covered up pretty quick in the threads so I figured I would bring it to the top again and see if anyone has an input on this?
 
When you did all the other stuff, did you put bulbs in the taillights? It's way back in the mists of time for me now, but I remember my Dart would occasionally do the same thing, and it meant A) Blown bulb B)Corroded socket or C) Bad ground.
 
Check the ground loop for the steering column. Runs from the dash to one of the column mounting studs. Even if it's there, run another wire from the column to a known good ground. See if that works.
 
torquehouse said:
Check the ground loop for the steering column. Runs from the dash to one of the column mounting studs. Even if it's there, run another wire from the column to a known good ground. See if that works.
Click to expand...

Already did that and there was no change
 
Slantsick said:
When you did all the other stuff, did you put bulbs in the taillights? It's way back in the mists of time for me now, but I remember my Dart would occasionally do the same thing, and it meant A) Blown bulb B)Corroded socket or C) Bad ground.
Click to expand...

No blown bulbs, all connections are clean and have been dielectric greased, all ground related are connected and in good condition.

It was all fine for the passed few weeks since I installed everything and then out of the blue this problem started and nothing has been done recently to cause it
 
If you have 2 #1157 bulbs in the front park/turn fixtures, those bulb sockets are loosing there ground. It's a common problem with plastic fixtures in plastic grilles.
 
I have a metal 69 valiant grilel in my duster.

and still not sure why it would work fine for weeks and then all of a sudden not.

Not doubting what your saying at all ,don't get me wrong.

I appreciate all the help you guys are offering.....I am just letting you guys know what I have tried.

I talked to a few members and they say that it for sure sounds liek a ground problem.

Question is.....where lol
 
Well..... It was just bugging me too damn bad so I had to go out in the garage and tinker with it lol.

I sat and thought about it for a minute and decided I would pop the grille out real quick to check the bulbs and connections and all that good stuff.

as soon as I popped the grill out I seen this.....
IMG_0119.jpg


In case you cant tell.....its a male ground prong.

so I figured.....hey its worth a shot, so I ran a ground wire directly from that prong to a ground on the body.

.......and guess what.....all worked as it should on that side......so then I decide to make a series of wires connecting both marker lights to a common ground on the body.....and everything worked exactly as it should.

so then I got to thinking....(well how in the hell did it work to begin with?????) (your guess is as good as mine LOL).....I tried unhooking this connector...

IMG_0118.jpg


and plugging just one half (power half) into the turn signal connector and then running my own ground wire to the opposing terminal and everything worked just as it should OTHER THAN when I used the turn signal ...the marker light did not flash..... so my question is..... on the harness.... is one wire power for light and the other wire a higher voltage (flash) wire....that sends out a higher voltage to cause the flash? and the light is grounded from a different source other than these two wires? because I was under the impression one wire is ground and the other was power....and when I put my multimeter to the one terminal I thought was ground and touched it to the body it showed it as a ground.

maybe I am not grasping the concept of something here lol.

ANYHOW....since the grille was from a 69 valiant it had the pronged ground set up and that prong ground is isolated to just the bulb (does not connect to the grille anywhere to make ground with the body ) (which is why I am baffeled at how it worked in the first place at all)...... so I made up some ground wires and put female connectors on one end of each wire and I put eyelets on the other ends of each wire.....pluged them in and bolted the other ends down to body grounds.... and this is the end result.....

IMG_0117.jpg


all works good and as it should.....which makes me happy but I would still like to know how it worked before and what everyones thoughts are on it.

SCORE:cheers:
 
The harness connecter to the park lamp fixture shown above has 2 wires. One is for park lamp element in 1157 bulb and the other for turn signal power to the other brighter element in same bulb. Neither wire is a ground. Anyway.... Happy moparing
 
RedFish said:
The harness connecter to the park lamp fixture shown above has 2 wires. One is for park lamp element in 1157 bulb and the other for turn signal power to the other brighter element in same bulb. Neither wire is a ground. Anyway.... Happy moparing
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification RedFish..... looks like I just didnt have a ground ran for the lamps after all......still don't know how the heck they worked in the first place lol but ohh well ,all is good now.

Thanks again everyone for the tips and thanks for getting my mind tracking down the path of a GROUND.

:cheers::cheers::cheers:
 
I also am looking for a little insight to why I have flashers brake lights parking lights but signals are not working have replaced flasher and still nothing any ideas would be greatly appreciated 1970 duster Rallye dash
 
DUST UM ALL said:
I also am looking for a little insight to why I have flashers brake lights parking lights but signals are not working have replaced flasher and still nothing any ideas would be greatly appreciated 1970 duster Rallye dash
Click to expand...
lack of turn signals is totally different issue so should be a new thread. anyway...
There are 2 flasher modules. We don't know which you replaced. The one near steering column is hazard flashers. The turn signal flasher is on the right side of the ash tray hanger.
The turn signal switch in the steering column can be the problem.
 
Sry guess i should have started a new thread my bad replaced both flashers with new ones have the sterrste wheel off and access to the turn signal switch flasher button is part of the switch and they are working fine as are the brake lights
 
DUST UM ALL said:
Sry guess i should have started a new thread my bad replaced both flashers with new ones have the sterrste wheel off and access to the turn signal switch flasher button is part of the switch and they are working fine as are the brake lights
Click to expand...
The flasher switch is built into the column switch assembly. That has no bearing on signal switch operation. If/When you get to it you'll see its 2 separate switches in one assembly.
Both brake lamps work when the signal switch is in centered position.
Move the signal switch wand to left signal. Find that right brake lamp still works but not the left. Now there should be signal circuit made to the left side, a front and a rear. If a bulb or socket was the problem, the other, be it front or rear, would stand on and not flash.
If the fuse for turn signals is good there isn't anything else to prevent signals from working except the signal switch.
 
DUST UM ALL said:
Is there anything else that is on the turn signal fuse ?
Click to expand...
I would need to drag out a service manual to answer that one. You can check all the fuses with a basic test lamp. With ignition switch turned to on, all fuses, except for one, should be hot at both ends. That one gets its power from headlight switch pulled to first click, park lamp position.
 
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