When I rented a U-Haul trailer one time, the dealer suggested I buy one of their heavy duty flashers to replace the standard one on my fuse block.
I guess the extra draw from the extended blinker circuts makes this necessary sometimes. It won't cost you much to find out.

JAF
http://www.monsterslayer.com/jeep

 

Yeah, I am hoping to pick one up on the way home from work today. Hopefully it will take care of the problem. I'd like to get the jeep back together so I can work on other things. I can't wait to see how they look.

1997 TJ w/ 33's
1984 CJ7 V8 SOA w/35's or 39's
http://members.aol.com/a4x4jeeper/
OverMost 4wd Club President
www.jeepeast.com/overmost

 

My CJ still has the original lights but when I turned on the headlights the blinker wouldn't work and it just ended up being that it didn't have a good ground.

Justin,
1980 CJ-5
1972 Jeep Commando

 

Hey,

Yeah, I looked for that. At first that was one of the problems (the grill wasn't bolted to the jeep) and I put a ground wire from the grill to the jeep.

I believe the ground is Good at this point to look for something else.

But, I do have one question. Is the flasher hot at all times? When I put a test light on the flasher It lights up. Is the hot wire always hot? or is that a problem?

Thanks.

1997 TJ w/ 33's
1984 CJ7 V8 SOA w/35's or 39's
http://members.aol.com/a4x4jeeper/
OverMost 4wd Club President
www.jeepeast.com/overmost

 

Keep us posted on what you find out as this is what I intend to do to mine.

Thanks

My other vehicle is an Aircraft Carrier.

 

I just got back from lunch and I picked up a heavy duty flasher. I will try it tonight. I hope this is all i need to do. I should be working on other things instead of blinkers..lol

1997 TJ w/ 33's
1984 CJ7 V8 SOA w/35's or 39's
http://members.aol.com/a4x4jeeper/
OverMost 4wd Club President
www.jeepeast.com/overmost

 

Flashers are about as simple as you can get. They use a thin bi-metalic strip, just two different metals bonded together. The two metals have different expansion properties and one will expand faster than the other. This is the same principle used in the thermostat for a furnace.

The flasher is simply an auto reset circuit breaker sized too small for the load. With the strip in it's normal shape, contact is make and power flows through the strip. When power flows, it heats the strip and bends it due to the different metal expansion properties. This breaks the contact so no power can flow and the strip cools back down and returns to it former shape and makes contact again. The cycle just continues.

A heavy duty flasher is needed when there is higher current draw, like when adding the lights of a trailer. The higher current draw heats the strip too quickly and the cycle is too short, thus making the lights blink too quickly.

 

Thanks. You say that heavy duty flasher would keep them from blinking to fast. So in my case, I don't need a flasher? Since mine aren't flashing at all when I turn the parking lights or headlights on.

Everything worked fine before I put the led's in. I took the grill into my garage and mounted the lights. I than put the grill on the hood and connected all of the wires. I have a heavy duty ground strap going from the grill to the jeep.

1997 TJ w/ 33's
1984 CJ7 V8 SOA w/35's or 39's
http://members.aol.com/a4x4jeeper/
OverMost 4wd Club President
www.jeepeast.com/overmost

 

You have to have a flasher. Like Taz said, the flasher heats up and breaks the circuit, causing the light to go out. If you don't have a flasher, the bright filament would be on constantly. I have a hard time believing that a heavy duty flasher is needed. Changing out to LED's reduces the draw drastically, which is the opposite of what makes a HD flasher a requirement. It could be that you already have the HD variety, and there isn't enough draw on it to heat it up to break the circuit. Check and see what you already have before just guessing. You might find out that a different type of flasher is used with LED bulbs. They worked when you just had the rears done I'm guessing, so the load from the front lights caused the flasher to work. Now you have eliminated that load by going to LED's front and rear. LED's only take about 0.8 amps per corner versus at least 5-10 amps for filament bulbs.

How does the blind man pick up the "Seeing-eye" dogpoop?

 

i understand that i do need the flasher. The flasher that is in there is a 552 which I have been told is not heavy duty.

Could it have anything to do with the actually LED light? They have 3 wires. Ground, Blinker, and Marker Light. The stock lights only have 2 wires. 1 of the 2 runs the blinker and the other runs the marker light. I assume this is ok to do.

1997 TJ w/ 33's
1984 CJ7 V8 SOA w/35's or 39's
http://members.aol.com/a4x4jeeper/
OverMost 4wd Club President
www.jeepeast.com/overmost

 

JW,

You're going in the right direction, if these lights consume less electricity/power then try a light duty flasher. The original lights have 3 connections also, its just the ground is fed through the housing thats why it has to be fastened to bare metal, or have a separate wire run to the housing for the 3rd wire. Hope this is what you're looking for.

Fluke /wwwthreads_images/icons/cool.gif

 

If you don't have enough load to heat the strip, the flasher will not cycle. What you have described is a classic ground problem. You said the flasher works without the lights on. Turn on a blinker, lights off, and then disconnect the marker wire. If it quit working with the marker disconnected then it was completeing the circuit through the marker light and you have a ground problem.

What happens to the lights on the rear when the lights on the front don't flash?

 

Taz.....this is what bothers me about this problem....I was hopin' that you'ld put your spin on it. In a conventional setup one would expect a bad ground on this to explain the loss of the blinkers......but these are LEDs which if the ground was bad would not allow current flow in the reverse bias position. That is, the light can't ground out through the parking light circuit like conventional bulbs do. So......the ground MUST be good for each LED at least at one time. What happens if you reverse the wires .....that is, put the blinker where the parking light is and the marker where the turn signal is?

So where are you at..........???????

GeeAea

Figures don't lie ....... but liars sure do figure.

 

It's been too long, I don't remember if LED's light in forward or reverse bias. I know that there are multi color LED's out there that emit one color when biased in one direction, another when biased in the opposite direction and a third color when connected to alternating current. I think these are just two LED's in series with opposite bias.

All diodes will conduct in reverse bias at some voltage level. If I remember correctly, LED's light in forward bias but the reverse threshold is very low so they conduct readily either way.

 

CJ Taz was correct when he was talking about the bi-metal circuit breaker...
Everyone has skirted around the answer, but not really hit on it...

First,
CHECK YOUR GROUNDS!
It sounds like you have a ground problem.
Run a 10 Ga wire from the battery negative terminal to the grill shell, or better yet, to the ground wire on the lights themselves.

Second,
LED (Light Emitting Diodes) are very low current draw compared to your previous marker and blinker lights.
The flasher is counting on a certain amount of current draw to 'Trip' or 'Trigger' it.
If you aren't drawing that set amount of current through the 'Flasher', it doesn't trip, or it trips slower because the bi-metal switch doesn't heat up enough or quickly enough.

That's also why when you tow a trailer, you flashers trip really fast.
Much more current is being drawn through the flasher because of the trailer lights, so the thermal switch is heating up too fast and triggering too soon.
--------------------------------

Just like when you have burned out light bulb, or your charging system is not working, your blinker gets slower or doesn't work at all.
You have two choices here,
1. Use 'Ballast' resistors in the supply line to the light.
I don't recommend this.

2. Use a heavy duty 'Mechanical' flasher instead of the 'Thermal' flasher described earlier in this thread.

Thermal flashers rely on heat generated by current being drawn through a 'Circuit breaker' of sorts.
Mechanical flashers use a small electric motor to activate the switches that work the lights.
Thermal.

Thermal flashers are usually small (1" to 1-1/2" in diameter), are usually round, and have two prongs.
Mechanical flashers are usually larger (1-1/2" to 2"), square, and usually plastic cased.
They will make a distinctive 'Ratcheting' sound when they are working.
Try one of these before you spend a lot of cash on other fixes...

"I Have The Body Of A God... Buddha"

 

Hey Guys,

Well, I found out the problem. While trying to get these blinkers working we figured out that these lights only have 2 wires not 3. The wrong plug was on the LEDs.

So I attached them to the side blinker wires and they work with them. Everything is fine now.

I will post a picture this week of the final setup.

1997 TJ w/ 33's
1984 CJ7 V8 SOA w/35's or 39's
http://members.aol.com/a4x4jeeper/
OverMost 4wd Club President
www.jeepeast.com/overmost