GT6 indicators
Discussion
hi all,
just after a little bit of help here. Part of the reason for buying the gt6 was that it was thought of as a good car to learn and get dirty with. i've so far managed to change the seats and fit seatbelts, which lets be honest was just tighning bolts and drilling some holes.
I've since tried to change the rear bulbs for led ones - it didn't really help so changed them back to the original ones. However since then I've hit a problem. the indicators will when used, will just come on and stay lit, with no flashing.
i think that they are on a different circuit to the rear lights, and certainly on there own cluster on a mk2. So i don't see how I've broken them ? Also after digging around, people say check the earth, but what earth ? what am I looking for ?
help !
just after a little bit of help here. Part of the reason for buying the gt6 was that it was thought of as a good car to learn and get dirty with. i've so far managed to change the seats and fit seatbelts, which lets be honest was just tighning bolts and drilling some holes.
I've since tried to change the rear bulbs for led ones - it didn't really help so changed them back to the original ones. However since then I've hit a problem. the indicators will when used, will just come on and stay lit, with no flashing.
i think that they are on a different circuit to the rear lights, and certainly on there own cluster on a mk2. So i don't see how I've broken them ? Also after digging around, people say check the earth, but what earth ? what am I looking for ?
help !
Not sure of the exact set-up on a Mk2 but the earth will be to the car body.
On the Spitfire Mk IV/1500 and GT6 Mk3 each bulb goes in it's own holder that in turn clips in to the light cluster. The bulb holder has one metal strip that goes from the bottom of the bulb to the top of the holder where it's clamped under another metal ring that doubles-up clipping the holder in to the cluster.
With these you tend to get corrosion between the two pieces of metal - all of which is of no use if they aren't the same on the GT6 Mk2!
On the Spitfire Mk IV/1500 and GT6 Mk3 each bulb goes in it's own holder that in turn clips in to the light cluster. The bulb holder has one metal strip that goes from the bottom of the bulb to the top of the holder where it's clamped under another metal ring that doubles-up clipping the holder in to the cluster.
With these you tend to get corrosion between the two pieces of metal - all of which is of no use if they aren't the same on the GT6 Mk2!
If the bulbs comes on, the (negative ground) earth is fine. The bi-metallic flasher units do not have an earth and are prone to failure, I would suggest this is the cause of your problems.
The flasher unit should be somewhere up behind the dash panel, if you want to improve it, you can do so by replacing with a modern electronic flasher, but this will require an earth to be fitted to the unit.
The flasher unit should be somewhere up behind the dash panel, if you want to improve it, you can do so by replacing with a modern electronic flasher, but this will require an earth to be fitted to the unit.
SpitBang said:
If the bulbs comes on, the (negative ground) earth is fine. The bi-metallic flasher units do not have an earth and are prone to failure, I would suggest this is the cause of your problems.
Actually a bad earth will give the same behaviour, light on but no flashing and is a far more common cause of problems.The bi-metallic strip in the flasher relies on current flowing in the circuit to heat the strip, one side more than the other causing it to bend. This breaks the circuit, the current stops flowing, the strip cools and bends back again. This re-makes the circuit and off we go again.
If you have a bad earth the current in the circuit very quickly falls away, below the level required to heat the strip enough to bend and break the circuit. Net result the lights come on bet never flash.
It's best to trace the problem and fix the bad earth (if that's what it is) but fitting a modern electronic flasher relay can often get you going again. This uses a microporcessor to time the flashing so only needs the current necessary to run the chip to flash, not that to heat a piece of metal.
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