Old Accord turn signal

Hey all,

I've just come across this place and hope you can help me out! I've
got an '81 Accord hatch and the turn signals have recently stopped
working. Working the indicator stalk has no results; nothing on the
instrument panel, no clicking sound, none of the external lights
flash. Putting the hazard lights on, however, works fine with all
bulbs lighting. I've looked a bit into this and the fuse looks fine -
I swapped it with another fuse of identical rating to check, and no
difference.

A mechanic friend of mine said it sounded like the flasher can and
showed me where to find it - the little metal drum that the clicking
indicator noise comes from. He suggested there would be one can for
indicators and another can for the hazard lights, and at the very
least I could swap the two around until I could find a replacement
part. Well with only the hazards working I could only locate the
hazard can by following the sound, but I didn't see any similar can
near it - rather, there are two larger cans tied to the hazard can by
a couple of rubber rings, one of them looks to be bolted to the
underside of the dash, but they don't look interchangeable at all.

So I guess I'm wondering where to go from here. Is there a way I can
narrow the problem down to either the stalk assembly, the indicator
can or something else? I just want to know what's causing the problem
before I start looking for replacement parts.

Cheers,
Philip

 

Little help?

 

wrote in 50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com:

The headlamp/parking/turn signal switch assembly is just a mechanism
that selectively supplies ground to various wires depending on the
settings of its levers and turn-switches.

One big wire (probably white) supplies the power. The others distribute
the power to the accessories. If you don't have a wiring diagram (could
be tough to find at this late date), you will be reduced to removing the
switch from the steering column and studying how its contacts are set
up. Sometimes you can see the circuit board, sometimes not.

You would be using a multimeter to check for continuity between the feed
wire and the various contacts that are closed as switch is set to its
various positions. Contacts can be corroded, wiped away, or insulated by
ancient grease that has hardened so terminal contact is prevented.

Use your multimeter to also find the power feed. Turn the key to "II",
then probe each wire to ground, looking for the 12VDC feed(s).

I do not know how you would check the flasher can(s).

 

Thanks heaps for replying mate. I guess the first thing this tells me
is it's probably not the flasher can - if there's only one to be
found, the hazards and indicators must be sharing it. So I reckon I'll
take the wheel off and have a look at the switch assemby - I don't
have a multimeter and probably wouldn't know what to do with it if I
did, but at the very least I can figure out which contacts and which
wires I need and go from there. I've got an old Gregory's manual for
the car which will help, it's just not exactly pitched at my level of
ability. This gives me something to kick off with though, thanks a
million!

-Philip