[ahaley55]

I am wiring the lights into a 56 willys pu. The spartan signal switch has seven wires coming out. 4 go to front and back, left and right turn lights, two go to the flasher which leaves one wire for the brake lights. This wire (brown) shows continuity with the two rear turn light wires when the signal switch is in the neural position. It shows continuity with left light when the signal switch is in right turn position and opposite when switch is in left turn position. This is all as it should be except that when I wire it in to the truck, it does not work correctly. As a matter of fact, the brown wire seems to be completely grounded as long as the turn light are connected up, but does not ground when the turn lights are disconected. I cant get the brake lights to work, cant figure out how the brown could possibily be finding a ground when there is nothing grounded in the whole circuit, and dont know what to do next. It is all the more maddening because I have been four years working on this truck, I am almost finished but I cant go anywhere until I get this issue worked out. Anybody got an idea?

[gcrmcc]

If you are checking for grounds with an ohm meter, like you said the brown wire that goes to the brake light switch shows a ground when lights are connected, an ohm meter will show it grounded if the bulbs are in the sockets. If the bulb are in the sockets, remove them and the ground will dissapear. What you are reading as a ground is continuity through the bulb filaments. Hope this helps

[ahaley55]

Thanks for the post, now that you point it out, I dont see why I couldn't have seen the circuit. But I still cant get the lights to flash when I depress the brake. I have a 12 volt current coming out of the brake switch when I push the brake but if I connect that lead to the wire (brown) into the signal switch , nothing happens. If i diconnect the leads to the turn lights and check for continuity between them and the brown, it shows a complete circuit. It just doesnt seem possible, yet there it is.

PS - what a great site this is. Its not quite as good as working on old pickups, but darn close and a lot more cleaner.

[gcrmcc]

Are you sure you are getting good grounds with the tail light mounting bolts or studs? sometimes you need scrape away some paint on your frame or body on the inside to make a good ground. did you check to see if you have tail lights with the headlights on? I don't know how far you have gone with the wiring as of now. You may not have went this far yet. Sometimes I just use a jumper lead with clips on the mounting studs to the frame if I still have the body or pick-up bed still off. Also something to remember is if the taillight housing is plastic only on stud is usually the ground or maybe there is a third wire to ground the light assembly. Hope this might be the problem as electrical can sometimes be frustrating.

[rrmccabe]

Something you might check.

I am not familiar with this switch but based on the wires you said were available. 4 to the lights, one to brake, and two to flasher.

Is this a special flasher that handles BOTH turn signal and Hazards?

As a rule, you have a turn flasher and hazard flasher. Each one is fed with 12 volts and then the output of each flasher feeds the turn signal swith. Most turn signal switches have an input for each flasher not two wires for one flasher.

So unless you are using a special flasher that has more than two terminals on it, your setup will not work.

Just a thought. As I said I am not familiar with the spartan. Do you have a wiring schematic you can post that came with the switch?


Rich