Install issues with 7 wire Chieftain turn signal switch...help please
 

Hey guys I'm attempting to install a 7 wire Chieftain turn signal switch onto a 41 Oldsmobile and I ran into a snag. I ran the red wire to the brake switch wire that is NOT hot all the time and the blue and black wires to the corresponding terminals on my 3 prong flasher. Then I ran the wires for the rear lights using new wire all the way back to just before each of the left and right bulb sockets, splicing them into the sockets there. Now when I try to use either directional both are coming on instead of just one side. I'm guessing I have something hooked up wrong and it's back feeding power back through the circuit and into both bulbs?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Also Is there any way to wire this switch into a single filament front parking bulb and still have the light work as both parking and signal?

For a 3 terminal flasher :
Black wire goes to L terminal on flasher
Blue wire goes to P terminal
Hot wire from ignition goes to the X terminal
yellow front left turn
Green front right turn
Brown to right rear turn
Orange to left rear turn
Red wire from turn signal switch goes to brake light switch terminal that is not allways hot

If you are using a 2 pole flasher twist the black and blue together and hook them to the L terminal
Got this over at stovebolt .com

As far as using a single filament on the front for turns and/or parking...no.
You should be able to replace the socket with a dual filament socket, run an extra wire to each and end up with park/turns in the front.

Also...are you sure the bulbs in question have a good ground?

I have the wiring hooked up as noted and my grounds are good.

Was I right to run my wires all the way back to the sockets? I may be wrong in how they're hooked up. One lead has the parking light feed into it and the other has both the brake and signal feeds going into it.

Sounds like you may have spliced your new turn light wires into the existing brake light wiring, but left the original brake light wiring intact. This will cause an interconnection between the left and right rear turn signals.

Your new wires from the turn signal switch should be the only wires connected to the bright filaments on the stop/turn lamps. You need to eliminate any connections between the stop/turn lamps and the original brake light wiring.

On the front lights, converting the existing turn light sockets to accept dual filament bulbs would be the best, most reliable solution, IMO.

If you really want to use single filament bulbs for both park and turn lights, it is possible. You could use a trailer light converter like this one to combine the park and front turn light functions. Not sure if it will work if your car is still 6 volt. In either case you still need to run separate wires out to each of the front turn lights.

Hope this helps....:thumbup:

Joe I think you hit my problem right on the head for the rears.....thanks.

I may try the trailer light controller idea on the fronts as well. I run one on my motorcycle...although like you said it may not work off of 6V.

Ok guys I'm half way there. I removed the stock brake light wiring and kept only the wiring from the turn signal switch attached and everything is operating properly now.....except when I turn on the parking or headlights. Then my signals no longer work. I checked and they are on different filaments so I'm not sure what's causing the issue. Any thoughts?

Oh one other issue as well. The car has fog lights on the front and we decided we would disconnect them from the switch under the dash and wire them in seperately for the front signals instead. However they are much dimmer when hooked up to the turn signal switch than when they are hooked up to the foglight switch. Is the turn signal switch not providing them with enough power? As fog lights they are drawing power straight off of the battery.

My first thought is it really sounds like a weak ground somewhere. I would start by triple-checking all the grounds. If the car has been repainted, the factory lamp grounds are no longer adequate. I've chased my tail so many times on lamp grounds that I now always solder ground wires directly to the lamp sockets and ground them to the frame. I also ground the headlights directly to the frame instead of the inner fenders or radiator support (that might be overkill - but it works great, every time).

If it's not the ground(s), it could be that, for whatever reason, the lamp contacts are not lining up with the socket contacts, like maybe one of the bulbs isn't turned to the fully locked position, or perhaps one of the socket contact discs is not indexed correctly.

It's likely that the fog lights are too much load for the flasher and/or the turn signal switch. Those old 6v fog lights draw a lot of amperage. I would measure how much amperage one of the fog lights draws before going any further with that. You might be destroying your TSS trying to do that.

If you converted the fog lights to accept an 1154 bulb, then using them for turn lights would be quite doable. But I would hesitate to do it with the original bulbs.

Good luck.....:thumbup: