Meant to ask this a bit ago but forgot until I saw the 1157 thread. My nephew has a 96 I believe Mazda truck. Yeah really a Ford Ranger. Anyway when he bought it the turn signals wouldn't work. I did some text troubleshooting with him and he got them working. He said something about them being slow but I dismissed it cause failure mode for turn signals is fast flash right? No they really are slow. Like they turn on the normal time length but the pause between is 4 times as long. Any ideas?
Is there possibly a single filament bulb where there should be a double filament? Or, visa, versa?
Years back, my '83 Rabbit called for double filaments. One had been replaced with a single filament. When I stepped on the brake pedal, an action that should trigger the brake lights and the second filament, instead, my dashboard lights and front amber lights would come on, until the brake pedal was released.
This drove me nuts for a long time!!
Often, when a turn bulb is blown out, the flasher will "fast flash" as sort of an indictor that something is wrong. Given that this is slow, have any turn signal bulbs been replaced with LED bulbs?
Fancy bulbs may not be the right thing far an old school Ranger.
A 1996 Ranger is pretty simplistic with big ambers up front and ambers in the rear too. I would inspect all the amber bulbs to be sure of the correct bulb.
Flasher unit going bad, or maybe wrong bulbs? Is it still the style that has a bimetalic strip that heats up when the lights are on due to resistance, and that heat makes it disconnect, and then as it cools because current is interrupted it reconnects?
Front and rear are wired in parallel (so when one goes out the other can still work) but that means when one does go out the the resistance of the circuit increases. and the current falls.
Assuming all the bulbs are incandescent, it sounds like it may have "heavy duty" "truck" bulbs installed rather than regular automotive. That works just like the fast flash from burning one out, but in the other direction.
Triple check all the grounds. Those older thermal flashers work on resistance. Too much resistance and they take too much time to cool off and recover. They are also pretty sensitive to time, corrosion, and shorting. I had a bulb short from water and it fried the flasher.
I would try replacing the flasher with an electronic (not thermal) flasher.
I just had this happen with the Miata. I think I had a bulb stuck in backwards or something. It wasn't anything more than a bulb issue.
Ok thanks guys. I know where to start now.
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