My wing sat largely unused during the three years I owned my VFR. The VFR had 15,000 miles on it when I sold it and I doubt the wing saw more than 2000 miles during that time. And, that might be overstating it. Since putting it back into service full time, I noticed that my flashers would sometimes work and sometimes not. When they were not working, the dash light would barely light up but it would not flash. I converted everything to LED and got rid of the auto cancel stuff years ago. I installed an LED capable relay at the time and I assumed that the flasher was starting to bite the dust.
Being the cheapskate that I am, I pulled the relay and cleaned the connections hoping that it would fix it. No good. So, I decided that some day (Ha!) I would spend the money to fix it. Every time that it would start to work again, I was hopeful that it had fixed itself (Ha!, again). Just to give you an idea of where this is going, though I did not put 2 and 2 together until yesterday, every now and then the brake light would not activate right away and the horns were weak. I assumed that the horns were just old and worn out and that I needed to clean the contacts on the brake light switches.
So, my stepson is visiting and he took the wing out for a ride on Wednesday. When he got home he told me that the brake light and the flashers were not working. My first thought was that the brake light switches were finally too corroded to work and that the flasher was acting up again. When I went out the next morning, I noticed that the horn was not working either and that is when I figured it was a fuse. Indeed, the fuse was blown. I hoped it was the flasher because I did not want to have to trace all that wiring looking for a short.
Lacking the correct 15 amp fuse, I popped a ten amp in there and vowed not to use the horn or flashers until I got to work hoping that the short was only a problem when one of those was activated. No good. Fuse blew right away. I bought 15 amp fuses and popped one in and it did not blow right away. However, the horn, flashers and brake light did not work and then the fuse blew. GREAT! Here comes hours of tracing down wires, I thought.
I happened to look at the flasher relay. Now, I had to cut off the plug in order to make it work with the LED flasher. When I first did this, I painted the contacts with liquid electric tape. I noticed that one of the contacts was touching the frame. And, the electric tape had worn through on that spot. I twisted the relay, replaced the fuse and it was beautiful music! Flashers work every time. Horn sounds great. Brake lights work. My guess is that at first it was making occasional contact and it gradually made solid enough contact to blow the fuse.
The interesting thing is, I must have put the flasher relay back in the same position a couple of times because the symptoms stayed the same even after cleaning the contacts. Hope it keeps on working. And, boy am I glad whatever I did to get the good karma I needed for that trick.
Being the cheapskate that I am, I pulled the relay and cleaned the connections hoping that it would fix it. No good. So, I decided that some day (Ha!) I would spend the money to fix it. Every time that it would start to work again, I was hopeful that it had fixed itself (Ha!, again). Just to give you an idea of where this is going, though I did not put 2 and 2 together until yesterday, every now and then the brake light would not activate right away and the horns were weak. I assumed that the horns were just old and worn out and that I needed to clean the contacts on the brake light switches.
So, my stepson is visiting and he took the wing out for a ride on Wednesday. When he got home he told me that the brake light and the flashers were not working. My first thought was that the brake light switches were finally too corroded to work and that the flasher was acting up again. When I went out the next morning, I noticed that the horn was not working either and that is when I figured it was a fuse. Indeed, the fuse was blown. I hoped it was the flasher because I did not want to have to trace all that wiring looking for a short.
Lacking the correct 15 amp fuse, I popped a ten amp in there and vowed not to use the horn or flashers until I got to work hoping that the short was only a problem when one of those was activated. No good. Fuse blew right away. I bought 15 amp fuses and popped one in and it did not blow right away. However, the horn, flashers and brake light did not work and then the fuse blew. GREAT! Here comes hours of tracing down wires, I thought.
I happened to look at the flasher relay. Now, I had to cut off the plug in order to make it work with the LED flasher. When I first did this, I painted the contacts with liquid electric tape. I noticed that one of the contacts was touching the frame. And, the electric tape had worn through on that spot. I twisted the relay, replaced the fuse and it was beautiful music! Flashers work every time. Horn sounds great. Brake lights work. My guess is that at first it was making occasional contact and it gradually made solid enough contact to blow the fuse.
The interesting thing is, I must have put the flasher relay back in the same position a couple of times because the symptoms stayed the same even after cleaning the contacts. Hope it keeps on working. And, boy am I glad whatever I did to get the good karma I needed for that trick.
