Turn signal trouble.

[Thecatmilton]

My turn signals have no problems with the headlights off. When I turn the headlights on all 4 turn signals are solidly lit up. There is no blinking when I use the left or right signals or if I turn on the hazard lights. The grounds under the dash and under the hood look fine if that helps. Any ideas?

[Tom D]

do they blink with the headlights off?

[Thecatmilton]

The turn signals and hazards work fine with the headlights off.

[Tom D]

before we dive down this road, did you get the blower figured out?

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without looking at the wiring schematic to confirm, the headlights and running lights are related, turn lights and hazard lights are related, but the two circuits are different, unconnected and have nothing to do with each other.

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with that in mind my initial thought is that somebody either used euro front corner markers or was tring to fix a problem.

start by checking how many wires are coming out of the front corner lamps, US cars will have 3 and euro cars only 2. someone might have wired the headlights and the turns together to the euro lamp sockets.

[Imolarot2]

First thing, clean the fuses. The last time I had a lighting issue I spun my fuses to clean the contacts and everything worked fine after

[epmedia]

My turn signals have no problems with the headlights off. When I turn the headlights on all 4 turn signals are solidly lit up. There is no blinking when I use the left or right signals or if I turn on the hazard lights. The grounds under the dash and under the hood look fine if that helps. Any ideas?

Mine looked fine too, but the ground bundle next to the battery was not.

[Thecatmilton]

I have really cleaned the ground next to the battery. One terminal with several corroded wires that looked ok fell off when I barely touched it, so I replaced it with a new one. I brushed the area with a wire brush to remove any extra corrosion, reconnected everything, and put some dielectric grease down over everything to prevent more corrosion. The turn signals still aren't working though. @Tom D My corner lamps have three wires coming off them, I have spun all the fuses, and sprayed electrical contact cleaner on them too. Also, the blower motor still isn't working and I am powering it with the cigarette lighter until it warms up a bit outside.

[gusm325]

Have you checked the contacts behind the bulb?

I had to bend back out one of the "brass" contacts as it was not reaching the turn signal butt on the bulb.
The bulb felt "sloppy in there.
PO probably forced in a bulb in the wrong way and damaged the plastic...

Also... Both filaments in the bulbs are ok right?
Are you sure you don't have # 1156 (single butt) bulbs installed in the front corners?

Front side markers are #1157

[Tom D]

I think that both the corner markers and the heater blower is related, but because you decieded to blow off diagnosing the blower it's harder for me to move on to another electrical glitch.

[Thecatmilton]

gusm325 figured it out! A previous owner installed single filament bulbs in the sockets. I will buy new bulbs tomorrow.

[Tom D]

you said there was three wires going to the socket, ground, turn, running. a single filament blub only has two contacts so it would have to be touching both the turn and running light contact at once. this is probably possible because the single filament has the contact on the bottom in the middle, the twin filament has two, one next to the other.

but the positioning pins on the sides of the bulbs are different. a single filament has two pins at the same level and the twin filament the two pins are offset. that would mean that somebody forced the bulb into the socket and you might have another fix coming up.

[gusm325]

you said there was three wires going to the socket, ground, turn, running. a single filament blub only has two contacts so it would have to be touching both the turn and running light contact at once. this is probably possible because the single filament has the contact on the bottom in the middle, the twin filament has two, one next to the other.

but the positioning pins on the sides of the bulbs are different. a single filament has two pins at the same level and the twin filament the two pins are offset. that would mean that somebody forced the bulb into the socket and you might have another fix coming up.

Exactly.
Mine where melted and destroyed from the PO trying to force the bulbs in...
I was sick of fiddling with the bulbs working whenever they wanted; so a cheap fix was to find and insert new sockets into the holes and rewire them. Drill carefully and Oreilly's or the Autozone china shelves are your friend...

I don't think I spent more than $10 bucks in materials

Here come the purists to kill me now...

[Thecatmilton]

Any ideas on what this wire is doing?

[gusm325]

Check this out under the DIY
http://www.jtresto.com/e21/ETM_1981-1983.pdf

or http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...and-DIYs-lt-lt

You have a mess there, that is the slot for the fog lights relay.

Ps. You ground wires next to the battery look terrible, I thought you cleaned them...

[Tom D]

that's the fuel pump power. it should be connected to fuse #3, which is 16 amps. the fog lights are only 8 amps.

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based on the picture above your electrical circuits have been compromised. you didn't necessarily devolved that fact in your earlier post.

please post photos of the fuse box and all associated wires.

[Thecatmilton]

@gusm320i, This picture was taken before I cleaned the ground wires and a added new terminal (I can post an after picture if you don't believe me). @Tom D, I will take more pictures tomorrow when I will have good lighting. Anything else I should take pictures of besides the fuse box?

[epmedia]

Check this out under the DIY
http://www.jtresto.com/e21/ETM_1981-1983.pdf

or http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...and-DIYs-lt-lt

You have a mess there, that is the slot for the fog lights relay.

Ps. You ground wires next to the battery look terrible, I thought you cleaned them...

And that just happens to be the primary chassis ground as well as the front lights. Without that being good, clean and tight, nothing will work as intended (except components on the engine, if the engine ground cable is good).

[Thecatmilton]

I have cleaned the ground next to the battery just incase anybody missed that in my last post. I will post a new picture tomorrow so that will no longer be an issue.

[epmedia]

I have cleaned the ground next to the battery just incase anybody missed that in my last post. I will post a new picture tomorrow so that will no longer be an issue.

If you've not yet tried to remove that bolt to clean it yet, you'll probably want to soak it with penetrant for awhile.

[Thecatmilton]

I took some pictures.

I cleaned the ground with this.


Some fuse box pictures



Back of the relay plug


This looks bad



The loom tape is peeled back here. The rockford fosgate 8ga goes to my 4 channel amp.


The ground, I tried to make it look nicer before I took the picture, but the wire brush was dirty and made things look worse. I have removed the screw before and the metal is clean where the terminals touch. I will borrow my friend's dremel (mine broke) this weekend and make it even nicer if recommended. You can see the terminal I replaced..

[Tom D]

what's under the duct tape?

[epmedia]

That green color on that one ground wire is very bad. May have to snip the end off, or replace that wire. If any other of those wires have green color, they should be re-regurgitated as well.

One of those two black colored ground wires will not be of service as designed.

I like to soldier critical connections. Silver soldier is best, but more difficult to work with.

[Thecatmilton]

@epmedia I soldered the connection too. @Tom D The duct tape is keeping the fog light harness together as a previous owner removed the bumper which I have put back on.

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I know that a crappy mechanic has worked on my car in the past as my fuel mixture screw is missing and they just put jb weld over where it would be..

[Thecatmilton]

It was nice outside today, and I had some time to take some pictures and do some other things.

Is my ground cleaned to everybody's satisfaction now? The two black wires are to the fog lights.


The fog light wires are now wrapped up nicely.


The molested insides of my fuse box complete with random butt connectors and other connectors that are burnt.


This picture is a little bit blurry.


Some more random fuse box pictures.



Back of the relay with the random green wire and more fuse box molestation.



How difficult would it be for me to take my unmolested fuse box from my other car and put it into this one? What about the harness that goes from the fuse box into the car? Does it have plugs so I could swap it out somewhat easily, or is this a much larger task?

[gusm325]

Looks very good!

That additional relay... Is it for the fogs? (check out the crimp on that green/purple, I believe is a "hot lead" peeling out a bit, you don't want it touching ground).

"I know that a crappy mechanic has worked on my car in the past as my fuel mixture screw is missing and they just put jb weld over where it would be.."

I will let the "Gurus" chime in regarding this; but I believe the screw has to be under there in order for AFM to work, they may have just covered it with JBweld to stop people from messing with it...
Got a pic of that?