[T3] Turn Signal Trials & Tribulations

[Jim Adney]

My '73 square developed a problem with the right turn signals 
starting a few months ago. The lefts workd fine, but the rights 
flashed at doubletime. While this usually indicates that a lamp is 
burned out, both of my right TS lamps were fine and were flashing, as 
well as both indicator lamps in the dash.

Today I decided to try to figure out what was going on.

Since headlight grounds came up here a few weeks ago, I thought I'd 
make sure the ground screw in RF corner of the trunk was okay, but 
when I looked at it, I realized it had only one wire in that lug and 
that wire was for the headlight, not the TS or running lights. 
Anyway, I loosened and greased that screw and then noticed that the 
front TS lamp was no longer flashing, while the rear one was. I 
fiddled with the screw for awhile but finally gave that up and 
decided that my TS lamp had chosen that moment to burn out. Really 
odd.

Went to remove it and discovered that it was rusted into place, so I 
had to destroy it to get it out, but managed to do that without 
damaging the socket. Then I had to scrape off the rust in order to 
get a good used bulb to go back in. Then I had to scrape the socket 
contacts to get them to make contact. I probably wasted a good hour 
on the whole job....

Finally got everything back together and working again, this time 
with the correct flash rate.

I'd never seen the flash rate go wrong while the bulb was still 
"good," but either the old bulb had a slightly higher resistance or 
there was resistance in the bulb contacts. Something reduced the bulb 
current below the point where it triggered the TS relay into the fast 
flash mode.

I would have thought this drop in current would have made that bulb 
noticably dimmer, but it didn't seem to be any dimmer than the left 
side.

-- 
*******************************
Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
*******************************