CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

blowing blinker fues

Justin Fleming

1/2 ton status
 Premium
Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Posts
924
Reaction score
48
Location
Oxford MI
For some reason I keep blowing the blinker fuse randomly. Some times it will go a few days and other times it happens with in the hour. When this happens I can turn on the 4 way flasher and they still work.

Any idea where I should start?
 
Could be water or corrosion shorting at the bulbs, maybe.

Do you have a trailer harness? I had all manner of fun with a hack job of a trailer harness, but that was on a CUCV (which are 24V, sort of, and 12V, sort of), so I can only partially blame the PO for that mess.

Could be a problem at the fusebox, if the hazards work, but that'd be a bear to diagnose.

As for 4xcrazy's comment, I am reminded of Kip Adotta. "My mechanic said I'd blown a seal. I told him to fix my car and keep my personal life out of it."

-- A
 
I thought blinkers were optional in SE Michigan.

But yeah, I would look for evil trailer wiring first. Many a good harness has been vandalized by numbskulls with crimp connectors. Then look along the frame rail where that harness runs to see if it's been melted on exhaust or pinched by something.

Any idea if it only happens on the R or L signal? It's also possible somebody has been "upgrading" the bulbs and now it's marginal for the fuse rating. Is it a 20A fuse?
 
I thought blinkers were optional in SE Michigan.

But yeah, I would look for evil trailer wiring first. Many a good harness has been vandalized by numbskulls with crimp connectors. Then look along the frame rail where that harness runs to see if it's been melted on exhaust or pinched by something.

Any idea if it only happens on the R or L signal? It's also possible somebody has been "upgrading" the bulbs and now it's marginal for the fuse rating. Is it a 20A fuse?

It was supposed to be a 15amp fuse, someone did upgrade all the lights and there is now these led style tail etc. in the truck. They did have a 20amp fuse in the fuse panel. What I found odd was that when they do work you cant hardly hear the flasher, I have never had this problem in any other old chevy. So I was wondering if the flasher was on the outs causing the problem. The trail harnes wiring is very clean, plugs inline with a factory molded connection and goes right to the 7pin fitting. I have not caught it in time to understand when they actually quit working. The other od issue is that the right rear tail light comes and goes at no apparant reason. I looked at all connection and the ground, everything looks good as new..
 
Well a single bulb being intermittent is likely a bad socket. It's pretty common on these tail lights.
 
I just "treated" (I say treated becuase I didnt cure it for good) this in my truck. I unplugged the back up lights from the NSS on the steering column. I had the same thing happen on a 2000 chevy I had. I cant explain it, and I dont know the real cause of the problem but but by sacrificing reverse lights I havent had to change a fuse yet.
 
Good luck on finding the problem. It took me 5 years to find an intermittent blinker fuse problem on my old Jeep!
It would blow anywhere from two to three times per day, to 5 months without blowing.
After the first year, I replaced the fuse with a dash mounted push-to-reset circuit breaker.
That way, when it blew, I just pushed the breaker button back in and kept going. I kept thinking it would someday get worse so I could find it.

One day, I was working on some rattles, and found it. Those old Jeeps had a hump in the hood over the radiator. There was a piece of felt/fabric riveted on the body across that to keep the hood from rattling.

Somehow the wire going to the right front blinker light had gotten embedded in that material so far it was invisible.
It was laying on one of the rivet heads, but the fabric held it off enough so that it did not touch normally.
When I hit a hard bump, the hood would compress the fabric down and slam the wire into the rivet.
Eventually it wore through the insulation, but could only touch when the hood was pressing it down.
Of course, there was no power there except when the blinker was on.

So, the only time it blew the fuse, was when I hit a bump hard enough for the hood to press the wire into the rivet for a split second, at the exact second the right blinker was on.

No wonder it took so long to find it.........
 
did some diging into to rear tail light going out and blinker fues blowing. What I had found was on the right rear tail light ground wire (blk) there was a spot in the insulation that looked skinner than the rest of the wire. Best way to explain is when you stretch a wire some time it breaks internal and stretches the insulation some. Any how I was able to wiggle that spot around and get the tail lights to come on and off. So i cut that piece out and replaced and so far things have been good.... Time will Tell
 
Top Bottom