Schmoozer

So a little under a year ago on nice cold morning driving to work on the highway, a guard rail came out of no where and bit the front driver side of my Jeep and nipped at the back a little too. A family friend that owns a body shop fixed it up for me at a little over cost. The only thing is now my driver side turn signal blinks about twice as fast as it should (passenger side works fine). And for the first couple months it was intermittent.

All the turn signal bulbs work, and as its been over 9 months I doubt any of them are "about" to go bad. If it was the relay wouldn't both turn signals be doing it? Could it be a loose ground, where should I look?

I am not in any way an electrical person and I figured its not really hurting anything, but if anyone idea what it could be I'd be interested to know.

ol"blue

Turn on the parking lights and see if that side is brighter than the other side. If so, it could be as simple as an incorrect bulb, or the bulb not oriented in socket correctly.

Schmoozer

Didn't even think about that, I'll check it out when it gets dark outside.

smtippin

I had a similar issue when the XJ I bought had relations with a brick wall. The passenger side front cluster was banged up a bit. After a bit of searching, I pulled the yelow 1157 light from its housing with the blinkers on and accidentially tapped the bulb on the uniframe. Turns out I hit metal to metal on the bulb and everything started working perfrectly. I guess when the PO hit the wall it tore the ground wire off of the bulb behind the plastic boot on the passenger's side directional/running light.

You might want to check your electric since it wounds kinda like my issue. Or, if you prefer to bypass this, you could get the lighting end of the wiring harness out of a donor. This would be the sure fire approach if there was a short up front. THat being said though, the rapid blinking you describe can present if either the front or rear has a short or bad bulb.

PS. I agree with the above poster too that you want to make sure you have the right bulb 1157 v 2057 in. I think you'll want the 1157, but am not sure what those fancy 97+ XJs take. In my research the only difference is supposed to be in brightness, but my cluster only works with the specific bulb.

s

parkerbabco

we had a car in our shop that did that it was a bad connecter that you put the bulb into it wasnt getting a good ground and thought it was a burned out bulb so it blinks fast to tell you you need a new bulb.. put a new bulb in it works but still blinks fast so we checked the ground and it was all messed up .. new ground fixed the problem

Schmoozer

Sorry the last one is so blurry, checked the side ones too, all the lights seem to be in good working order. Tomorrow some cars may be out of the driveway, I'll try and check the grounds then. Should I be looking in the housing itself, behind the housing, or elsewhere?

boyesreef

check the socket where the bulb contacts it for ground, i had a similar problem, and turns out all wires and everythind were fine (reletively) but the socket was rusted a little not allowing a ground, a little clean up and some dielectric and all works fine now.

Schmoozer

Okay, so looked at all the lights today. The guy who fixed my Jeep said he got a new wiring harness for the front lights but upon inspection that was a lie. Instead, he had butt spliced in a cheap socket for one of these bulbs in for the front driver's side turn signal:

The bulb was in bad shape the glass was grinding against the metal and the metal housing was very loose. Frankly I'm amazed it was still lighting up and that i was able to get it out of the the socket. So I went and bought a new bulb thinking that was
the problem, it wasn't....

Long story short, ended up taking off the front fascia and checking all the continuity . . . nothing, so I said &*#@$ it and called it a day. As I was putting the turn signal assembly back together I realized if you push the cheap bulb in really hard into the cheap @%$ socket, the turn signal blinks at normal speed until you let go, &^#%. So now I know what to do tomorrow....

Thanks for your help guys!

Schmoozer

I went to my local JY, every 97+ XJ was lacking turn signal sockets. So, I found one that looked right, pulled it of some old Ford if memory serves, fit the housing fine, took the same light bulb, even had a working bulb in it.

Testing the socket on the other side the left seemed to be hot and the right was split between the ground and the negative.

I checked the continuity of the plug and found the wire that needed to be connected to the hot wire and butt spliced in, then I butt spliced the other two wires (assuming the ground and negative were interchangable on a simple socket). YES! It worked.

Problem:
So tonight I turned on the head lights and discovered the driver side turn arrow on my guage cluster stays lit with the head lights (the side I "fixed"). When I turn on the driver's turn signal it blnks really fast agian, but only when the head lights are on.

So is this a coincidence and there's another bad ground somewhere? Or is it something I did? Does socket maybe have a diode or something in it that would cause this if the neg and ground were switched? Has anyone seen this before?


EDIT: Oh, by the way, the arrow on the cluster wasn't lighting up with the head lights before my fix, its a new symptom, tomorrow I'll trying switching the ground and neg and see if that works....

Schmoozer

Switched the ground and the neg, now the light on the dash doesn't come on with the head lights but the turn signal blinks quickly all the time now.

ol"blue

I don't know much about electrical, so this is just my guess. It's a dual filament bulb. So the single wire on the left in the picture is ground. the two wires on the right are for the parking light, and the turn signal light. That's how my damaged brain see's it anyway. Worth a try.

Schmoozer

Hmmmm, I think you're right . . . . . how did I not blow a fuse? I'll try this asap but I have to go out and do some other things and if the sun is down when I get back it will have to wait. Thanks.

Schmoozer

Much thanks ol"blue and everyone else! This morning when I woke up I had no idea what a double filament bulb was, now after some reading I do.

I guess the reason it didn't short was because it was feeding back through the other bulbs, not sure if they design it to be robust/idiot proof or if its just a coincidence and happens to be the cheapest way.

mstevens609

Can you send a link of somewhere to buy the ground for the front/back ground for the driver side turn signals

Louis maccarone

I have the same problem but mine ended up being the fact that the prior owner of my Jeep actually spliced in a harness to connect to a trailer so the trailer would lights with work and basically I just rewired all the wires made sure they are all nice and tight and especially the ground wire now once I can I see the ground wire everything works perfect one so I'll just make sure all the wires are connected good make sure they're all clean take a wire brush to make sure you clean them up real nice and I get any rest also you know you might want you so much cleaner on as well good luck it's not very hard at all just go ahead laying out and tighten it down