I have a 70 Maverick and I have all of the exterior lights working except the right front turn signal. The rear works and the bulb is not bad because it comes on when you turn on the lights. The bulb in my guage cluster does not work (my left one does though) and I was wondering if this was part of the problem, or an indication of what might be wrong. Also while I'm on here I put all new bulbs in my guage cluster while I had it out but my guages still won't light when the lights come on. Oh, one final thing my speedometer wont work. I was thinking if I took the cable out at the transmission and spun it with a drill to see if the needle turned that would prove that at least it was connected at the cluster and I just need a new gear. Thanks for any help. Bryce.
Disconnect the battery and clean the socket of the rf turn signal, then put a NEW bulb in it. Dash lights? hmmm might be headlight switch problem? Yes, take a drill to your speedo cable to possibly confine the area of the problem. Dan
I already tried cleaning the socket/replacing the bulb, before I posted. Still no luck. Hopefully the guage problem does not lie in the headlight switch. Those switches are kind of a pain to work with.
Sounds to me like the lamp socket isn't properly grounded. Are you talking about the lamp under the front bumper? It turns on with the rest of the lights? You'll have to excuse me, I took off the bumper lights and installed the later grill w/lights over 30 years ago. Anyway, if the bulb is an 1157 it's a dual element bulb. The dim element is for driving lights and the brighter element is for turn signal. I've seen just one side work when the connector contacts got corroded, where the lamp wiring plugs into the harness.
Thanks I'll take another look at the plug, and clean it up and see if that helps. I just assumed that if it was a bad connection to the harness the driving light wouldn't work either.
Use a test lamp or meter to see if you have power. DO NOT use those probes that you push into the wire. All they do is poke a hole into the protective insulation and allow road salt and water into the wire and it will fail sometime in the future. Test at connections and at the socket itself.
The under-the-bumper turn signals can be kind of a pain when it comes to problems like this. In the past I have seen this happen due to a bad ground between the metal bracket of the turn signal and the bumper. Try unscrewing the two screws that hold the turn signal to the bumper. You will probably find that they are rusted on, which is why the ground is bad. If you can remove them, make sure there is a good clean metal to metal contact. If it absolutely won't come off, you can drill a small hole in the bracket(may not be easy to do while still attached) and attach a wire and run it to a good ground. Probably as clear as mud...but I hope it helps!
