Flasher relay problems! No more indicators. Please help

thildy

Gday all.

My ‘89 245 has been near faultless until now. :(

Most unfortunately, the flasher relay cooked it the other day (hot electrical smell and noisy buzz coming directly from the relay). Subsequently, the indicators stopped.

I found a replacement 3-prong relay at Burson Auto parts and despite saying it was an “LED” relay, I was assured it would work. Popped it in and voila! My indicators worked again… for 10 minutes. Then they stopped flashing (just turned on/off with the movement of the indicator stalk). That lasted 2 days before they’ve stoped working all together again.

Im a very handy novice mechanic, but really inexperienced with electrical. Now seems as good a time as any to learn.

Could there be a ground fault somewhere? Where the frack do I start looking for that?Or was the “LED” relay the wrong replacement?

Any help would be greatly appreciated from this awesome community! My biggest pet hate is people who don’t indicate, and this is my daily so I’m a bit desperate.

ramrod

I hear of this happening very often on 240’s and the problem is corrosion on the fuse box terminal contacts.

What people need to do (but they don’t) is service the fusebox regularly. It doesn’t help when the windscreen leaks water and the fusebox is directly located right where leaks settle.

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ramrod

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ramrod

You can see the corrosion on the fuses and the fusebox terminals.

the brush is a good fit in the holes, spray contact cleaner at the same time as pushing the brush in and out, do this for all fuses.

it is also a good idea to clean the terminals of the wiring plugs for the relay and the hazard lamp switch.

thildy

ramrod
You can see the corrosion on the fuses and the fusebox terminals.
the brush is a good fit in the holes, spray contact cleaner at the same time as pushing the brush in and out, do this for all fuses.
it is also a good idea to clean the terminals of the wiring plugs for the relay and the hazard lamp switch.

Thanks for the tip, I’ll try it tonight when I’m home.

My fuses don’t look nearly as corroded as those, same goes for the terminals but that’s not to say they’re perfect. I’ve not cleaned them once in the 18 months of ownership.. doubt any previous owners would have either.

If the fault were at the fuse terminal like that, would it be safe to say that I’ve cooked my second flasher relay? I didn’t get any noise/burning smell when this one stopped working.

jamesinc

It does sound cooked. You should open the first relay up and look inside, it might give you a clue about why it failed. E.g. if the contacts are fused, it would tell you that there is too much load in the flasher circuit. It's also possible the old one was just worn out and the new one just can't deal with incandescent loads.

But a good next step would be to clean all the contacts. In addition to the fuse, you also have the connectors at the front and rear, and the bulbs/sockets themselves (often these have some corrosion).

carnut222

I have about 25 used 240 flasher relays. Happy to post a few of them to you in a $10.xx post bag if you want.