Turn Signal acting weird

[jhirizarry]

Hello, I have a 2007 Coachmen Cross Country on a Freightliner XC. I have an interesting problem with my right turn signal. With the headlamp switch in the off position and the right turn signal turned on, all (left and right side)the marker lights including the right and left turn signal lights flash as if the hazard lights were turned on. The right turn signal indicator on the dash blinks off and on normally. The left turn signal works fine. When I turn on the headlamps and turn on the right turn signal, the indicator light on the dash remains solid and ALL the lights (Marker and signal) flash very very dimly. When I turn on the hazard lights, all the lights flash except the side marker lights are very very dim. I have checked all the bulbs and fuses including the relay switches and all is well. I swapped the right turn relay with the left, no change. I swapped the lights on the left with the lights on the right, no change. Does anyone have any ideas or experienced something similar?

Thanks!

[jhirizarry]

Hello, I have a 2007 Coachmen Cross Country on a Freightliner XC. I have an interesting problem with my right turn signal. With the headlamp switch in the off position and the right turn signal turned on, all (left and right side)the marker lights including the right and left turn signal lights flash as if the hazard lights were turned on. The right turn signal indicator on the dash blinks off and on normally. The left turn signal works fine. When I turn on the headlamps and turn on the right turn signal, the indicator light on the dash remains solid and ALL the lights (Marker and signal) flash very very dimly. When I turn on the hazard lights, all the lights flash except the side marker lights are very very dim. I have checked all the bulbs and fuses including the relay switches and all is well. I swapped the right turn relay with the left, no change. I swapped the lights on the left with the lights on the right, no change. Does anyone have any ideas or experienced something similar?

Thanks!

[Pusherman]

My bet is a bad ground somewhere in the right turnsignal system. Bad grounds do lots of funky stuff, including making lights come on (dim) when they shouldn't.

Since it's an '07 hopefully it's still under warranty, with a trip to your friendly Freightliner dealer in order.

I had a funky turn signal problem in my coach (one side would NOT work) and it turned out to be a loose wire going into a connector under the steering column coming from the turn signal switch. FL found it (quickly) and fixed it.

[jhirizarry]

The coach is at our local FL service shop. They are stumped. They were on the phone with FCC all day. I asked the tech if he had checked for a bad ground and he had not. FCC thought it was the Headlamp Control Module, but the tech checked it and there was no visible indications of a problem. Moreover, no way to test the module other than turning lights on and off. FCC is stumped.

[chasfm11]

Here are a couple of ideas, based on my past experiences working on lights for sailboat trailers.
- remove all of the lights on one side or the other. I've seen light bulbs put in sockets that shorted things together. I'd admit that this is a long shot, based on your symptoms but it is easy to try.
- as suggested, bad grounds can give you fits. Using a good ohm meter, you can measure between the lamp bases for the turn signals and a good, known chassis ground point. It should read very little resistance.
- there is often a 3-2 converter box that is used to send combined brake and turn signals to the toad wiring. The box is nothing but diodes and a bad diode (or more than one)in it could be crossing things in the harness. It should be easy enough to isolate the converter.

Most times a bulb stays lighted instead of flashing, it was because it didn't draw enough current to kick the relay (which is how the "off" part of the turn signal cycle is generated.) If I were trouble shooting it, I'd pull all of the bulbs everywhere, use an ohmmeter to make sure that the harnesses hadn't rubbed together and shorted somewhere and then put one bulb back in on one end, tie its base to a really good ground and test. If it worked correctly, I'd start putting things back until I got a failure. If it is where Freightliner believes it is failing, it should do so with just one bulb.

I have a nasty intermittent speedometer problem which I've worked with FCC on (see separate post). I have them stumped with that one, too.

[jhirizarry]

Thanks chasfm11 that helped!! The shop called me today and found the problem. Believe it or not, it was a blown LED lamp in the rear right signal light. Funny thing is this lamp had a different part number than all the like lamps on the coach. The challenge now is that this problem is not covered under the Freightliner warranty. It is covered by the coach manufacturer's warranty. The shop is calling Coachmen tomorrow. I sure hope they cover it. The shop spent a lot of time hunting this one down!