VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Electrical - 6 volt 1953 turn signals

I just had the speedometer rebuilt and put on a new cable. My vertigo makes it difficult to crawl under the dash (also my girth but that's a story for another day) so a friend pulled the speedo for me. Since then the turn signals haven't worked. No light at all front or rear. The park lights work normally as do the brake lights. I assumed he just knocked a wire loose while he was rooting under the dash so I took it to his shop this afternoon to try to find the issue. Nothing obviously loose or disconnected. He was not able to find any power going to the flasher with the key on and the turn signal in the "on" position, either direction. He checked every fuse he could find but they were all good. Just in case, I have a new flasher on order that I'll pick up from the parts house in the morning. While I understand there would be no power out from the flasher if it's bad, I'm puzzled as to why there would be no power to the flasher with the key on and the signal lever set to flash. I doubt the new flasher will fix the issue and I'm looking for ideas about what the check next if it doesn't. The turn signals worked normally prior to pulling the speedometer. It's a stock 210 6 volt.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/6-volt-535...n-signal-switch-instructns-/380451472615
I would think you have the 3 prong flasher. First check you have power going to the "X" terminal. If no power backtrack and find out why. Good luck!

When does the X terminal have power coming to it? All the time? Any time the ignition switch is on? Only when the turn signal switch is activated?

Tiny, see the diagram in the link above. The X terminal needs power to work. It can be powered all the time or only when the ignition is in the on position.

Power in through X. Out to switch through P and L.

So since the turn signals of my 53 don't flash without the ignition on I'll have to have the ignition on to test the socket. Thanks.

Hi Tiny,

The 1953 wiring diagrams online have poor resolution so I am have having some trouble interpreting them.

The best I can tell is that the wire to the X terminal on the flasher is only hot when the ignition switch is in the run position.

If I find anything more tomorrow I will post.

Thanks Rusty.

The socket is dead and I found the fuse on the gas gauge. The issue now is I can't get the fuse holder to come off. It's a twist and turn but it spins instead of releasing the "tabs". I've tried tightening it, hoping it would provide enough friction to allow removal of the cap but no love so far. I'm concerned it'll break if I try to tighten it too hard. I'd hate to have to pull the cluster to check the fuse but I may have to.

Tiny have you tried taking the plate off that the voltage regulator is on, that will give access to the back of the cluster?

I will look at that. Thank you.

It turned out to be the fuse. What a stupid place to put a fuse. I was thinking about how to go forward last night and had the thought that the fuse holder base probably screwed on to the gas gauge stud. So while it turned and wouldn't allow the tabs to unlock, if I turned it enough it should unscrew from the stud. That's exactly what happened. Once the whole fuse holder was free of the stud it wasn't difficult to split it to look at the fuse. 30 minutes standing on my head and it's done. Sure don't want to do that again. If it blows again I'll wire a fuse holder in a much easier place to access.

Great to hear that you were able to resolve the problem.

Any thoughts on what caused the fuse to blow?

Don't know for sure. A friend was under there pulling the speedometer for me after it went bad. I'm assuming he touched something to something that shouldn't touch while removing it since they stopped working right after that. Another good argument for disconnecting the ground cable from the battery before working on your car.

That is a reasonable assessment as well as good advice.

I always have some doubt if I do not have an idea of what caused the fuse to blow.

It appears the saga continues. After replacing the fuse the signals worked in the garage. I just got home from a test drive and I could see no indicator lights on the dash showing the turn signals were working. I assumed something popped the fuse again. When I pulled into the garage I tested one more time before shutting the car off and they worked. The exception being both dashboard indicator lights flashed with the right signal but only the left flashed with the left signal. Electricity makes my head hurt.

Just don't get too much of it at one time.

Wonder if you might want to disconnect the battery to be on the safe side. It sounds like something might be going on inside the turn signal switch. With both turn lights on together that's not right.

I've seen frayed grounds, loose filaments, and dual filaments shorted together in bulbs cause some really weird intermittent problems since the shorts and reconnections vary based on temperature when the bulb heats up and of course bumps on the road.

Buy enough bulbs to replace every single one at the same time in every lamp related to the signals. Spares too since bulb quality today is crappy.

This is one of those tasks that needs a couple days of intentional ignoring as well, since your success is inversely proportional to your level of frustration. Crack a couple cold ones and work on something more enjoyable for a bit.

Yes, check all your bulbs. The weird indicator light behavior is most likely telling you a bulb is burned out somewhere (or a socket is not grounded).

Chevrolet wired those 1953 dash indicators in a very odd way. It does not seem to work at all with modern replacement flashers.

Look for a signal on the outside of the car that "works but dim" and check the ground.

I agree with Tim "Buy enough bulbs to replace every single one at the same time in every lamp related to the signals. Spares too since bulb quality today is crappy." Try to find " Made in the U.S.A." bulbs as even some of the best know brands are sourcing overseas or Mexico.

On two occasions I’ve experienced newer 6 volt flashers causing intermittent indicator light issues while the actual signal lights work fine. Not saying that’s the problem but if you installed the new flasher it wouldn’t hurt to see if using the old one corrects the issue. Mike

Thanks for the tip Mike. I did try putting the old flasher back in but no change. The puzzling thing is everything worked fine until I had the speedometer rebuilt. Something in the process of R&Ring the speedometer caused the turn signal fuse to blow. Once it was replaced this issue popped up. There's absolutely no reason for R&Ring the speedometer to either blow a TS fuse or make the indicator lights flash together. I'm about to pull my hair out over this.

The flasher itself has no way to make one side behave differently than the other. it is in the circuit before the switch, so any difference has to be getting switched in by the switch.

If there is a difference from one side to the other, that has to be a problem with the bulbs, grounds, wiring, or switch.

Stick with your original flasher if there is any chance it is good. If you want to use a current production one you will likely have to make a small wiring change. This comes up all the time both here at the VCCA and also on the AACA forums in threads about 53-54 Chevrolet and 53-54 Pontiac. Both indicators flash with either signal on.

The reason is that the dash indicators on 53-54 Chevrolet are wired with their hot side to the front signals (as normal), but the ground sides of the indicators are connected together, and then connected to the third pin on the flasher. That is not normal, and the modern flasher does not work with it. To use a modern flasher you need to remove this wire from the third pin and ground the wire. Then, you have to reverse the positions of the 2 sockets in the dash, because they will now be backward. If your original flasher is OK, you can avoid this.

Get both sides behaving the same first. That won't be a flasher problem. Good luck.

As Tim mentioned above "dual filaments shorted together in bulbs cause some really weird intermittent problems" . I have had this issue and can verify that it will cause you to tear your hair out.

This is confusing me in a couple of ways. First, the indicator bulbs ground through the housing as do the rest of the instrument cluster bulbs. Is that what you meant by grounding together? Second, if the flasher is wired before the circuit how will changing the way it grounds change things if "The flasher itself has no way to make one side behave differently than the other."? Thirdly, if the flasher has nothing to do with it but it's coming from the switch side would replacing the switch be helpful? BTW thanks for trying to help.

http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/electrical/wiring/pdf/53car.pdf

Bloo is correct about the wiring. Looking at the above, you see the flasher x terminal gets its power through a pink wire from a fuse holder at the gas gage. You already know this now. The p terminal on the flasher has a , can't really tell but looks like maybe black that goes to the left turn indicator light then on to the right turn light indicator. The two are tied together as Bloo described. The L terminal on the flasher is the line feed to and through the switch. Very weird wiring indeed!

Looking at the dash I see that the gas gauge/fuse holder is just above the right turn light holder/socket. I know it is hard for you to get to this area but I would check that right turn light/socket/bulb/wire first as you may have bumped it while working on the fuse holder. The right dash light is feed by a lt. blue wire. I wish I knew what that socket looks like and how the wire are attached.

Anyway, that my thoughts.

Found this wiring
http://www.my54chevy.com/page10/page45/assets/wire.jpg