That could probably be the title of this entire forum, huh? ;-)

I have two minor but frustrating issues which I'm having trouble solving.

Issue #1: Right blinker
When I bought this car, the right blinker housing/bulb/bulb holder had been smashed. I attached a bulb to the wire so I could use the blinker but didn't put it in the housing, and when I turned on the right blinker it would just buzz, and not turn the blinker on at all (left works normally). When I replaced the blinker housing, that problem temporarily went away, but now has come back intermittently. Sometimes it works fine, the majority of the time it buzzes.

I assumed this meant a bad relay, so I bought a new one... and now I can't figure out where it goes! The two places I know to look are under the hood and under the steering column. Both of them have diagrams as to what relay goes where, and neither of them list blinker/flasher/turn signal. In addition, the 4-way flashers work fine. What am I missing?? Some isolated threads in the archives about this but I can't find a clear answer in them.


Issue #2: Fog lights
When I bought the car the bumper was broken, so the fog lights were disconnected and I did not test them. When I replaced the bumper I reconnected them and they did not work, although the indicator light in the switch turned on, and the rear one works fine. Did some testing today and have not solved the problem.

First, checked the fuse which is intact. One of the bulbs was burned out so I removed it, but the other one is fine. With the headlights on, when I press the switch the indicator light turns on but the fog light doesn't. I thought maybe the relay was bad, so I switched it with the horn relay (same type, and known to be good) but no change. Then I bypassed the relay according to the 20v.org instructions for allowing fogs without headlights. With the relay removed and bypassed, the lights still did not turn on, but now the indicator light also stayed off. After replacing the relay the indicator light again worked, but no fogs.

I can't see anything visibly wrong with wiring harnesses, relays, or the lights themselves.

Any ideas are really appreciated!

- Joel

 

Sounds like the blinker housing itself is supposed to sink to ground. The act of re-connecting it set it to normal until vibrations and/or moisture caused that sink to become corroded or disconnected.

As for the fog lights, most likely something in the bumper is dodgy, if that was where the damage occured. If the removal of the relay causes a failure of the green switch light, that means the wiring issue is somewhere after the relay box. If it were before the relay box, the green light wouldn't work regardless of your relay swap.

Grab a multimeter and a buddy, and see how far along the line you get voltage.

 

Hmm. Can you elaborate on the "sink to ground" thing? Both the new and old blinker housings are just plastic all around, no electrical connections that I know of except the bulb harness. But as I remember it, the harness is in three pieces: wiring -> bulb holder -> bulb. I replaced the bulb holder... would a bad connection between that and the wires cause the buzzing?

Ugh, I was really hoping I wouldn't have to trace wiring to find a problem. That's the worst part of electrical issues.

 

I was just going from memory as far as the turn signal is concerned. I had an old Airhead R80 BMW with the same problem. Turned out, it was the part of the bulb socket that the base of the bulb was supposed to touch. It was corroded, and not allowing a complete circuit. It only buzzed.

If you pull the housing and wiggle the bulb, does it still buzz?

 

Ah, ok. I'll have to take a look at the housing again, maybe I missed something the first time.

Unfortunately, the problem is intermittent anyway, so it's hard to test. It's currently working fine, but it's done this before for a few days and then started messing up again, so I'm not convinced that it's fixed. This is probably going to be a long-term troubleshooting issue.

 

all you have to do is find out if that is what's happening. Get a test light. See if juice is getting down there. Then put your test light on the metal part of the foglite housing and the other end of the test light to good metal on the body. If the foglite comes on you have your answer. The ground is not happening.
The trun signal is easy. When you hit the Hazard switch...does the bulb light up? If not then either the bulb is shot or installed incorrectly or you have a wiring problem. As with the foglite check to see if the juice is getting there. If not start back from the bulb holder. If it is there then either the bulb holder is shot or the bulb itself.