My blinker blinks faster as I go faster???

k-ris

New Member
Apr 9, 2005
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It really has not been a big concern for me, but yet an annoyance. I have a 1990 5.0 GT and if I am at idle it stays lit until my engine revs a little higher and it will start to blink. It seems to be dependant on my alternator which is unusual because most cars, when the battery is dead the relay will still make it blink no slower or faster. I have changed the flasher relay, but nothing. My hazard blinks at a normal rate, but not my blinkers. Ohh and second thing my car likes to almost die when I put it into P or N when shifting out of gear on my AOD, just thouht I would throught that in.
 
Given both issues, I would clean the IAC and see if the gear-change issue subsides. The IAC might be dirty or the idle set incorrectly, which can create a low idle, and elec issues and near stalling while switching gears.

Good luck.
 
Alright well I am definately gonna go see if I can do anything about it right now, I looked it up and I found an article posted by muscularmustangs.com. I had been looking for what it is called for the longest time, for a while I was searching "EGR".... and never could find it.
 
Right after that response I went to PepBoys and got some intake/carb cleaner, sprayed it to smitherines.... and went back and mounted it, started my car and gave it a couple of swings down my street, popping it in to neutral and park once and a while and no more rpm droppage so far! Sweet, thank you! But now what about the blinkers anyone know?

TO CBZ: Nah but I found out that my muffler bearings were shot, can you believe those costed me $200!
 
In Jrichker's sticky at the top of the sub-forum, I have the first post after his original one, and I posted a link to that site (for easy searching in the future).

Though it probably does not matter at this point, in the future I would use throttle body cleaner instead of carb cleaner (many OEM TB's have a teflon coating on them to help keep them from gumming up, and carb cleaner can eat that coating off).

So did cleaning and resetting the idle not raise the idle past that threshold (of getting the blinkers to work normally)?

A possible aside - make sure to check the connectors at the TS bulbs and their grounds. A resisitive circuit could lead to issues with the flashing. A standard blinker relay uses a bi-metallic strip which moves on and off the contacts as current passes through it (when it heats up from having the light on for a second, it bends away and breaks contact. After it breaks contact, it cools, bends back and then makes contact again, and the light comes back on. This is what makes the lights flash). You can see that a resistive circuit could lead to inconsistancies with the flashing. I would not start here necessarily, but keep it in mind if other fixes dont work.

Good luck.
 
Would an issue like this have anything to do with the stock alternator not being able to supply enough power to all of the electronics @ idle?

I am in the process of gathering my 3G parts. Oh, and my car's blinkers are fine but I was just wondering.
 
What does your voltage gauge read? If its dropping off a lot as you slow down and stop, then it could be your alt. Mine is close to needing a new alt, when at speed the blinker will work fine, but when I stop, the voltage drops almost to the first line and the blinker damn near stays on lol. As soon as I give it gas the gauge goes to a normal voltage reading and my blinker responds as it should.
 
After searching the internet and realizing that the hazards and the turn signal flasher are different that finally made sense since I had replaced the hazard. Now the hard part was finding the turn signal flasher, in the manual for 87-up it says above fuse panel and below the instrument cluster cover or behind radio. So the first thing I did was pull the low instrument cluster cover out and the shield and no dice... So then I was like ehhhh, lets just turn it on and find it, so I looked for where the sound was coming from and I ended up stetching over the front seat into the passenger seat (because I had it parked up against some bushes so I had clearance on the drivers side), and went behind were the A/C unit and radio would be and I happened to pull the right thing and sure enough there was MR. Flasher. So I pulled it off and luckily I had kept my old one that I had taken of my hazards, plugged it in and BLINK, BLINK, BLINK, BLINK! That was the fastest it ever had blinked, like 3 in a second, im used to 1 in three seconds or even more! Thank you guys for the help, BTW the manual sucks it left me hanging after its vague descriptions of where to look, no diagrams. JEASE FUQING MANUALS.
 
Sorry K,

My GMC truck has the twist in bulbs and I have to buy new connectors because the light bulbs were stuck in the socket. The blinker blinks faster on one side than the other because there is a break in the circuit. That is the way to tell you a bulb is out. If a bulb is not out, then I would look at the flasher can. I myself will be installing a new socket in my truck tonight cause I got one side slow and one side fast with no signal in the front. Does that sound like your problem or am I confused by the other posts.


$200 for muffler bearings? Shoulda went to Autozone, much cheaper! :D
 
On a vehicle with a non-electric flasher, when a bulb is out, that side should flash really slow or not at all (just stays on solid). There is not enough amperage draw through the relay (with one bulb) to heat the bi-metallic strip away and make the flasher turn the one bulb off.

An electronic flasher can act differently. And LED bulbs can really mess up a conventional flasher because of their inherant low draw.

Good luck.
 
HISSIN50 said:
An electronic flasher can act differently. And LED bulbs can really mess up a conventional flasher because of their inherant low draw.

Good luck.
Yep, I have LED DTRL's, and turn signal, and brake lights on my other car... I had to installed resistors on all 4 corners to keep the turn signals from blinking fast like I had a light out.