Thread: Chevvie electrical gurus only

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OK. I'm plinking away at this 1990 Chevrolet P60 van.

There's a problem with the front turn signals.

What appears to be a ground at both assemblies seems to have been deliberately cut.

If I reconnect these grounds they pull a LOT of juice, but don't blow a fuse. ( the other marker lamps dim down). However, on the left side, when I connected it, the blinker indicator (green light on dash) lights continuously. ( I think this is key).

I could use any assistance, particularly schematics.

Thanks .

Issues I've found several times over many years---people wire turn/park/marker lights incorrectly with power going to ground which then goes thru both filaments in the bulbs and then body of lamp to fender creating lots of current draw plus that then effects the flasher----------

get volt/ohm guage and dissconnect all wires to light, remove bulbs, check to find true ground and also identify which wire feeds which bulb filament-------

some of the overseas supplied bulbs have sloppy contact points on bottom and don't line up on the terminal in bulb socket---------

At least turn signals are usually light weight and don't need a --------------------

I'm not having luck with the auto zone site, but I'll try again.

I used a dremel tool with cut off wheel to separate the blinker assemblies and soldered in a couple of bulbs, glued them back together with $4 epoxy. The repair saved at least $2 over buying the replacements! But seriously, I don't have anything else to do, and it was kind of enjoyable.

The Blinkers work, but not the running lamps.

It would be nice to find anything for this beast. It's as if it were excluded from popular data bases.

It doesn't have a cigar lighter.

THANK YOU !!!

Smiley face (how do I do that?)

BTW

This site

Because of

YOU GUYS

ROCKS !!

I'm having trouble interpreting the LH and RH front marker lamps. Do they 'ground' through the turn indicator and park turn lamps, and effectively "blink" when power is applied to the turn lamps?

No, that's not right.
When the voltage reaches the LH front turn lamp, it would not continue past the filament common.

The voltage will however, continue along the LT BLU wire, across the filament of the LH turn indicator to ground (illuminating the bulb). The voltage will also feed the LH front marker lamp. This will place 12 V on both sides of the LH marker lamp, and the lamp will extinguish, until the turn flasher de- energizes, at which time the LH front marker lamp is being sourced voltage from the brown wire, and will "ground" through the LH turn indicator filament, and the LH front park lamp, illuminating the LH front marker lamp.

Oh, BTW... The black wire is not a ground. It is spliced off the brown wire feeding the marker lamps in the hood. It's a wonder I didn't blow a fuse when I grounded it. Also, what the schematic shows as a brown wire to the front park lamps is really white.

I'll have to track it down, but my knee jerk reflex is to go straight to the turn switch assembly.

I did fix the headlights: given the overall condition of the van, I expected the bulbs were bad, and I scored a full set plus spares for $20. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a cut hi beam wire at the hi beam switch.

Anyone need a headlight?

That was a bit impish of you, Denny.

You tested me good!

Also: I had two marker lamps out on the top rear of the van. One was smashed, the other full of water. The design does not allow it to be cut apart like the front markers, so I just ordered replacements for the two. They came is as different manufacturers and were just different enough that it took a great deal of effort to make them work. The plugs are different, so I had to splice it in. The old screws had to be exchanged for longer. They ground through one of the screws, which go through a metal plate behind the fiberglass. The originals had a brass ring which facilitated conductance through the screw, but I had to cut a slot in the face of the new lamps so the ground wire ring terminal could sit under the screw head.

To cut the slot, I used a high power soldering iron with a plastic cutting / melting tip. Then I followed it up with a utility knife to clean it up. Worked out fine, but I would have happily paid more for the exact replacements.

I got it.

Looks like the vehicle was originally equipped with single filament bulbs. Someone who almost knew what he was doing adapted it to two filament bulbs, by running a new conductor: the one which started this thread. Somehow along the way, that patch got undone. The two-filament bulbs got rewired with the original ground as the second filament.

So of course that isn't going to work.

I disconnected the original ground wire from ground, and spliced it into the light switch (brown wire) and eliminated the added conductor.

TA DA