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New Unimog Turn signals
When my Unimog was stolen it was left stuck in a mud pit with mud at hood level. After it was returned to me with a blown motor my truck sat for months as we waited for the new motor and waited for us to rebuild it. All that sitting took its toll on the electrical goodies in the truck. After getting it on the road, we were only able to make the turn signals and emergency flashers work intermittently. I spent hours cleaning contacts, filing the metal connections on the fuseblock and light bulb connectors, finally I decided to tear out the masses of wiring and rebuild the circuit a little simpler. This is what I did.
trying to clean my original turn signal switch made it come apart and I had a hard time getting it to stay together again. So I bought some of the simple light up bat handle toggle switches. Before, with the old switch, I was always leaving the turn signals on by mistake, these bat handle switches light up in time to the turn signals so with them flashing at me I am much less likely to leave the blinkers on like I used to. I originally was going to use HEAVY DUTY switches or maybe another real MOG turn signal switch, but playing with these cheapo light up switches made me really like them for this application! Left switch up is left turn, right switch up is right turn, both switches up is emergency flashers.
Excuse my poor graphics, but this is the simple circuit I created instead of the masses of wiring that went to the old turn signal switch and the old emergency flasher switch. I used the original black flasher relay (pictured below) which I opened up and cleaned out. I did not use the silver can behind it.
Much simpler than the original design, and with the flashing of the switches I don't leave the signals on by mistake anymore. I also chose a fuse for power that is switched off with the key, so now I cant leave the turn signal on all day like I used to, I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about. ;-) I will also be adding some dash LEDs to the turn signal circuit, when I do I will post it here. I know the switches I used were cheapos, I always hated those crappy switches, but they really do work well for this case. Now, how long will the lights in the switches work? They are 12 volt switches with 12 volt lights! I don't know, I bought some extra switches, so far its been working about a month without a problem.... |
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COPYRIGHT © 2003 - Eddie L. Runner |
