6v Emergency Flasher problems

[Thompson2]

I'm trying to wrap up this portion of the project. I've gotten all the rest of the exterior lights working / bright / sealed so I've turned my attention to the last little bit and it's got me stumped.

The turn signals work perfectly. All lights on all corners come on and flash as expected. But the e-flashers are giving me fits. Initially, before I started working on the lights and wiring, all corners mostly flashed (sometimes they would, other times the dash indicator would come on and nothing would flash.

Now, after cleaning all the connectors and making sure the the flashers are grounded, nothing works when I pull the switch. The relay works if I supply power to the coil (pin 86) and all corners light up. But nothing happens if I pull the switch (or short all the 4 connectors together, which is what the switch does).

To add to the weirdness, the e-flasher works fine if I turn on the left turn signal when the switch is pulled out. If I turn on the right turn signal it flashes once then just kind of flickers.

I'm open to ideas on this one. I haven't finished cleaning up all of the connectors under the dash or in the fuse block, so that's all suspect (but I'm not seeing how it would cause this).

[Yennek]

What happens when you turn on the flasher switch and hit the brakes?

a) Nothing much, brake lights turn on - Check connection from 86 on the relay to the switch.
b) Everything lights up, brake lights and front turn signals - Check connection from S on the flasher to the switch.
c) Something else - uhh, report back, you may have more than one issue.

Assumptions: this a 63 bus, and you have no LEDs installed.

[Eric&Barb]

[Thompson2]

[Thompson2]

[Eric&Barb]

You can just use a bit of fine sandpaper to clean up the male terminals and skip stirring up so much crud. Fuse box and female connectors can be cleaned with vinegar. Both ways will probably remove much less metal.

The relay you have is not quite the same as we are using.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8553750&highlight=#8553750

Have not taken an E-flasher switch apart. Did recently on a wiper switch, should be similar. Just needed to carefully bend open to tabs on the body cover of the switch and pull the cover off.
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[Thompson2]

Switch is super simple. Bend the 4 tabs out instead of trying to bend them up. They were super tight to the housing so that was the only way I could get them out of the way.

Some contact cleaner to remove the old crusty grease and some 600 grit sandpaper to clean up all the contacts followed by a few globs of dielectric grease and it’s back together. No change to the behavior which was not surprising.

On to the next suspect.

[Eric&Barb]

Would have been good to solder the inner rivet connections. Did the DPO solder the outer ones?
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[Yennek]

That relay looks like a 2 prong thermal type. Typically doesn't require the case to be grounded. I used the 12v version for a number of years. It looks like you are possibly short one wire on it. The +15 is equivalent to the + terminal on the schematic. The other S54 terminal is equivalent to the S terminal. There is no need for a K or ground. The blue wire to the dash light gets connected to the S54(which appears to be present. I also see the black/white/green from the S54 to the turn signal switch. Stock, the wire to the hazard switch connects there too. It might have gotten moved somewhere else though. In the upper corner of your photo, I see a wire that appears disconnected, that is at least black/white, and maybe green. If that is the wire going to the hazard switch, it would explain your symptoms.

[Thompson2]

[Thompson2]

[Thompson2]

And just a bit more funky-ness. I've been looking through multiple versions of the wiring diagrams, just in case there was one that looked like my setup. No luck so far... but I did notice that the wiring to my switch doesn't match any of the diagrams I've looks at so far. It's got a black/white instead of black/yellow.

And I thought I knew where the missing wire went. There was a 3-way connector on one of the lugs of the flasher that had nothing on it (so I removed it) and I had a disconnected black/white wire. I connected the loose wire to the 3-way connector with the other 2 black/white wires in one of the 3-way connectors (as shown in all the wiring diagram versions that I've looked at). I found an early shot of the rats nest under the dash and if you zoom in really closely, you can see it connected to the flasher. But the wire at the switch has bands of white and the wire at the 3-way has a spiral white stripe. Still, I think that's why it doesn't work and where that wire was supposed to go.

Even if it works, it doesn't make me feel much better about the state of the under-dash wiring and I think I need to trace out the rest of this to make sure there aren't any hidden hazards waiting for me to short them out...

[Thompson2]

Well, this is fun.

Spent 10 minutes out with the mess and found all sorts of cool stuff.

First, connecting the black/white striped wire to the S54 terminal brings the emergency flashers back to life. Yay!

But... the wiring is weird... in the three 3-way connectors and 2-way unions, I have confusion...

In the 3-ways
First connector I has black/yellow twisted with a black/white in one end. The other has only 1 black/white.

Second connector has black/green in one end, black/green and a black/white

Third has black/red in one end, black/red and black/pink in the other.

In the two unions, I have
First connector — black/yellow and black/yellow

Second connector — Black/violet and black/red

I’m pretty sure someone unhooked everything and sort of managed to get it working... sort of... I have convinced myself that the black/white wire is in fact black/yellow. Lighting makes all the difference.

Gonna have to spend some quality time with the wiring diagram, a multimeter and several beers... and profanity... lots and lots of profanity.

[ToolBox]

Download the wiring diagrams from the tech section and have them blown up and printed at you local print shop and start figuring out what is what. Might be wise to open the harness wrap in a few places to see the color of the wire where it has not been exposed to light and the outside world.

[crofty]

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[Thompson2]

[Thompson2]

[Eric&Barb]

[Thompson2]

[Eric&Barb]