Minor Issue With Directionals on a ‘65

Farmer Pete

Farmer Pete

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Joined
Jan 14, 2019
Thunderbird Year
1965
Hello everyone. Just brought home my first T-Bird. A well optioned hardtop ‘65 in very good condition. The sequential turn signals work great, but the hood-mounted indicators freeze up after a few blinks. The front and rear signals keep blinking, but the hood indicators stop blinking (they stay illuminated). Same on both sides. Any suggestions?
 

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These indicators are notorious for this. Bad ground. Try this: Get a long wire, jumper cable will work. With the car parked and the turn signal on, and the indicator not working, touch one end of the wire to the bumper and the other end to the indicator itself. Betcha it'll come on.

Fixing it isn't quite as easy. Actually it is, except for the fact that you can't reach the thing. It is held in place by two nuts. You need a socket wrench that's about 3 feet long because you must get to it from underneath the car. You could simply tighten it, but most likely this is just a temporary fix. Best is to get a ground wire -- insert one lug under the nut, run the wire through that little hole on the inside fender, and fine a place to fasten the other end.

EDIT: I just re-read the post, and you said the light stays ON. That's a bit weird. These are basically on the same flasher as the other lights, with the exception of the rear center, and rear outside, which are controlled by the sequential motor. I don't know what would make the indicator stay ON, unless maybe there's a short in the steering column switch? Wiring at the base of the column? That's where I'd check first.
 
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Bizarre...mine are doing the same... Flash few times then stays on.... I'll work on the engine this winter and I'll try to fix the problem at the same time.
 
I had the same problem with my 66. I noticed that the fender mounted light would stay on when coming to a stop and engine was at idle. It looked like the alt wasn't producing enough power to overcome the load. Having other accessories on like the blower fan and lights made it worse. I switched to a modern electronic flasher and that has seen to have cured the problem. You could try that. Bird Nest has them. https://www.parts123.com/parts123/dyndetail.pta?catalog=0000030b&uKeY=AABXW
 
PaulDJBlouin said:
I had the same problem with my 66. I noticed that the fender mounted light would stay on when coming to a stop and engine was at idle. It looked like the alt wasn't producing enough power to overcome the load. Having other accessories on like the blower fan and lights made it worse. I switched to a modern electronic flasher and that has seen to have cured the problem. You could try that. Bird Nest has them. https://www.parts123.com/parts123/dyndetail.pta?catalog=0000030b&uKeY=AABXW
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Thanks Paul. I'll let you know how it works out.
 
Paul - The new flasher did the trick. Thanks again. I am a little disappointed with birds nest though. I ordered through them thinking that their part would be specific to the t-bird. But when it arrived it still had the cougarsunlimited.net sticker on it. They charged me $90. I could have bought the same cougarsunlimited part elsewhere for almost half the price. I guess I won’t be buying anything else from birds nest.
 
Farmer Pete said:
Paul - The new flasher did the trick. Thanks again. I am a little disappointed with birds nest though. I ordered through them thinking that their part would be specific to the t-bird. But when it arrived it still had the cougarsunlimited.net sticker on it. They charged me $90. I could have bought the same cougarsunlimited part elsewhere for almost half the price. I guess I won’t be buying anything else from birds nest.
Click to expand...

I'm glad the part worked for you. Sorry to hear about the price. I can't remember what I paid for mine. It's been a while since I bought it but $90 seems like a lot of money for what it is.
 
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