Re: 51Packards....52 Packard 200 Deluxe!

Posted by Charles On 2016/3/28 18:29:41

3-28-16

Thanks to Howard's ideas, I think I am pretty close to a diagnosis. One thing he mentioned was a bad bulb. I took the bulb out of the right front parking light and moved it to the left parking light and also to the taillights. Whenever I put this bulb in a socket, it would glow dim and cause the turn signal to flash dim and rapid.

I put the left tail light bulb in the right parking light so I knew I had 2 good bulbs in the right turn signal circuit. The bulbs burned brighter and flashed almost at the right rate, but the flasher only clicked once.

I reversed the wires on the front parking light and tried again. Now the flasher clicks and the turn signal worked! The only problem is it runs off the smaller filament instead of the larger filament like it should if I am reading Howard's comments right.

I put the good bulbs in the left sockets and tried it and the turn signals worked. These were also running off the shorter filament. I noticed the bulb was loose and would cut off if I wiggled it. I think the spring is too weak to hold it in snuggly. I wrapped some aluminum foil around the bulb and reinserted it. That seemed to help some.

I wired the right parking light back the way it was to run off the longer filament and rewired the left parking light to run off the longer filament. Now when I tried the turn signals with good bulbs in each side, they would blink but the flasher would not click.

So from what I can tell, I have a bad bulb (have to order a new one to confirm) and the turn signals will only work off the shorter filament and not the longer one. I also have a bad socket in the front parking light which is ironic because that was the side that was originally working!

I also tried to clean the fuel sender. I can hear it rub as it travels, but I noticed that right at the turn the spring strip is broken. It does not appear to affect it but maybe it lets it pull away a little and it loses contact. I had all of my alligator clips tied up in the front end so I couldn't try it. Maybe I could drop some solder on it to glue it back together?