Electrical wierdness

[carrman]

This morning when taking the Newport in to work, my left turn signal started flashing really slow. Had the headlights on, but not much else. Well, I got into town and found the left rear light was really dim. Played with it a little and saw that when I reinserted the socket, it was brighter, telling me it wasn't grounding well. Ok, need to look at that and solder a ground wire on, no biggie. On the way home I flipped on the parking lights, and when I used the right turn signal, it wouldn't hardly flash, and my dash, markers, and taillights went dark. Already had the turn signals fixed for blowing that same fuse. Turned on my hazards to see what all flashed, and sure enough the right tail was now dim. Reinserted the socket and got good ground again. Replaced the fuse and all is well again. My question is this, if a taillight socket loses good ground and the taillights are on, can I cause a fuse to blow using the turn signals when I have bad ground on that light?

 

[bluefury361]

This morning when taking the Newport in to work, my left turn signal started flashing really slow. Had the headlights on, but not much else. Well, I got into town and found the left rear light was really dim. Played with it a little and saw that when I reinserted the socket, it was brighter, telling me it wasn't grounding well. Ok, need to look at that and solder a ground wire on, no biggie. On the way home I flipped on the parking lights, and when I used the right turn signal, it wouldn't hardly flash, and my dash, markers, and taillights went dark. Already had the turn signals fixed for blowing that same fuse. Turned on my hazards to see what all flashed, and sure enough the right tail was now dim. Reinserted the socket and got good ground again. Replaced the fuse and all is well again. My question is this, if a taillight socket loses good ground and the taillights are on, can I cause a fuse to blow using the turn signals when I have bad ground on that light?

Is there a good ground from the (-) bat terminal to the body....?

 

[300rag]

It should not blow the fuse. Since the ground is bad, you are introducing a higher resistance which will lead to lower amperage, and consequently dimmer lamps, theoretically protecting the fuse from an overcurrent.

 

[carrman]

Have not looked for battery to body ground, but it does have a good ground to the block.

 

[BJS racing]

It is not common but yes it actually can cause it to blow the fuse. Typically you will notice that the harness will get quite warm because of the resistance. Heat creates resistance and resistance creates more heat. If you can see where this is going? Normally you will end up overheating the wiring before it will blow a fuse but if it were to all of the sudden get a good ground path it could cause a big enough surge that it could blow the fuse. As noted you should check ALL grounds not just the ones at the back. And yes the change in how fast it flashes and brightness would be a result of the grounds.

 

[Big_John]

I wouldn't expect it to blow a fuse, but yes, that would be possible with an intermittent grounding problem.

 

[BJS racing]

I wouldn't expect it to blow a fuse, but yes, that would be possible with an intermittent grounding problem.

Had it happen to one of my customers yesterday. He fixed the ground problems and it stopped blowing the fuse. It would happen after about 5 minutes in his case.

 

[carrman]

I know to start with I need to add ground wires to the taillight sockets themselves After 48 years the they don't seem to be as "self-grounding" as they once were.

 

[commando1]

As I replace each bulb in any exterior lamp, I always remove all the corrosion and clean the socket down to shiny metal. I'll even replace the cruddy sockets with new ones if necessary.
Oh, and decrud the connectors on the wires coming out of the lamp socket, too.

 

[carrman]

Well this evening I found the 1157 bulbs in the front turns were installed backward. The park lights would light the bright filament, and the turn signals would light the park light filament. That couldn't have been helping.