Retrofit Flasher debug

Yes, I know. I was not about to buy those resistors, besides which, they would be a source of under-dash heat which is not required. I have done what I can for now, without taking the whole flasher wiring system apart, more a job for the winter months. With the RHS only, as it is easily accessible, I have checked the earths and fixed them where required. Removing the front units, the Araldited ones, is a major wing support disassembly job. But I might buy a set of new bulbholder inserts ready for when I do that. That source for the Morris Minor flasher unit, though, does not work for me. I cannot see any image, and when I try to Add to Cart, I get a 'Method Not Allowed' complaint. Most odd. I will see if I can find a 'phone number, although it is not obvious on the webpage. Almost as though Jones wants to remain incognito! More later.

However hard I try, I cannot get anything to work on the GS Jones website. And I can't even find a 'phone number. Trying to send an e-mail message fails for one reason or another, none of which make any sense.

Well, I found a Facebook link for GS Jones, which gives a 'phone number. Which goes to Morris-Minor-parts, not GS Jones. I don't do Facebook, so have no idea how to contact them through Facebook. A real 'phone number would be very helpful! The man on the 'phone said that the company I wanted was in Shropshire, there is a GS Jones listed in Shropshire, but the published 'phone number is dead, and the Facebook link is the same as the one I found before! Total confusion. I give up on this quest. Thanks for the link but.....

If it is any consolation, I couldn't get through either, and I couldn't find a contact phone number either. The best I could find was a form to fill in:

I found this item for sale.

I have bought stuff from this seller before for my Minor and it has always been in excellent condition. He appears to have a fair amount of new old stock items which he sometimes sells through the Morris Minor Owners Club, and that could explain why the item looks like new yet has the original engraving from the 1960s original fit in the cars. It will work (the original one in my Minor still works 58 years later), but if is doesn't you will readily get your money back.

While looking, I found a job lot of flasher bulbs:

If you have any indicators that share a bulb with a sidelight, these:

Regards, Jim

This particular unit is only 21 W, though, but I will see what else he has for sale.

I take your point about getting stock in!

I was too focused on 21W bulbs, I hadn't thought the flasher had to work them in pairs. Sorry. It is worth asking him if he has a 42W version though.

If he hasn't got what you want instead, this one will be suitable:

Jim

And I have found a Lucas unit - but it is an auction item

Jim

Thanks. I'll go for the £9.99 one, I think. Cheers,

And it appears to work! More later.

Testing has shown that it does appear to work as intended, with no change to wiring or earthing. How interesting that this unit works, but the modern reproduction ones don't. Thank you for the suggestion. The final check was to return to it after a day of inactivity, and also to clamp the unit to the steering column, which could have had an effect if the casing had been polarity-sensitive. But it works.

Two further things:

1. The new location I have chosen for the pilot light, in an unused 2" gauge hole, is such that it will not be hidden behind my left hand while driving, but it naturally means I need a longer wire from the 'P' terminal to the rear of the light. That one is easy.

1. When the flashers were installed originally, NOT by me, there was a mix-up in the front colour-coding. The wire to the front left light is the colour of the right rear, and the wire for the front right is obviously a spare length of wire that was lying around. I have not bothered about it, as it was connected and doing the job, and I had it marked up on my schematic, but the pending installation of the new non-Araldite light inserts is the perfect opportunity to sort this whole thing out properly. Luckily they originate at a J-Box on the front chassis cross-member.

Also, there is an unanswered question. When I first bought a new flasher unit, I also bought a reproduction Lucas external-coil pilot light, which I could never get to work with any of the flasher units that I bought and tried. The question is, whether it would now work, with this good flasher unit. But as I strongly suspect that trying this unit damaged some of the flashers, as they behaved differently before and after, I am loath to try it. And the location for that lamp is only possible in the 'hidden' dashboard location, so this will remain unanswered.

On 26/08/2023 12:17, Davey wrote: <snip>

The Morris design is that the casing is fixed to the bulkhead by a bolt, and this was true whichever polarity the car was, so I would have expected it to have been isolated from the internals. The main purpose of the casing is temperature stabilisation to give a flash repeat interval within an acceptable range.

I would not try it. The P terminal is designed for a low wattage indicator light. The standard bulb fitted in the Morris is 2.2W, and I wouldn't want to go above 5W on the P terminal.

Jim

Indeed, I will not try it. No need. Just another redundant spare part on the shelf. But what pilot light was the Lucas flasher designed to work with, if their own dash lamp is too much for the flasher? Did they have a low-power range?

In the Workshop Manual it is listed as BFS987. It was a very ordinary looking bulb:

It is an E10 standard envelope (E10 standard is for physical size of the glass globe and metal screw base) but it can be found with a variety of voltage and power ratings, so you have to be a bit careful when buying one. There is another standard, BA9S for the same overall size but with a bayonet fitting.

On the Morris it is behind a pale yellow plastic cover, so 2.2W was bright enough to be clearly visible in daylight without being too bright at night.

Jim

This has taken another unexpected turn. After several drives with the flashers working as intended, they suddenly stopped working. Occasionally, after a long delay, there would be one or two flashes, but then nothing. I did the normal debug, and concluded that the flasher unit was the culprit. I had another, so I installed that, and the system worked, in the garage. But when I next tried them, still in the garage, they didn't work again. I took the first unit, and opened it up. Now I know how the thing works, and also, I could find nothing visibly clearly wrong. I am stumped. One (or more) of the other Reproduction units is a tiny PC board, so no debugging that. I am now making a test unit, using the guts of a spare rear three-bulb light, wiring two of the bulbs in series, using the light's 'chassis' as a jumper between them, so I have two of the correct 21 Watt bulbs in series, and I can then wire up a spare battery, a flasher unit, and the two bulbs. I will check the battery voltage to see how it compares with the 12 volts from the car's regulator. I will include a pilot light, although it looks as though that is not actually required, the pilot light output is just along for the ride as the flasher flashes. I will report progress, but any more ideas welcome. At least the car did not have indicators when it was built, so it is still legal to drive without them. I know my hand signals, even if no other drivers do! And the weather is getting less conducive to open-air driving now.

Your symptoms are what you get if one of the bulbs fails. The bulb might be OK but the earthing from bulb to holder might be intermittent or the wiring might have a poor connection that sometimes connects OK and sometimes doesn't.

I once had a car which ran nicely from cold but if I was stationary in traffic for a while with a fully warmed engine it would cut out and not restart. If I opened the bonnet and let everything cool down, it would then start and I could drive it again. It took me weeks to trace what was causing that. It was an aluminium spade connector crimped on to a copper wire feeding the ignition coil. When it got hot the aluminium expanded more than the copper and the power to the coil was lost, and it reconnected when it cooled down.

Your "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" symptoms are likely to be a bad connection, but I don't envy you the job of finding which one. The Morris flasher is pretty reliable (mine is still original in a 1965 car) which is why I recommended getting an original type, but I have noticed that during the June heatwave mine did flash quite a bit slower than normal, so don't position it too near the exhaust!

Jim

Hmm. The problem there (1) is that it is the same for both directions, but I can't argue with the logic.

(2) And the flasher is located on the steering column inside the cockpit, and before the car is even started, is not overheated.

But thanks for the thoughts. I am tempted to do a point-by-point rebuild this winter, including fixing all the known problems, such as the Araldited sidelight adapters.

If nothing else, I now know what happens inside a Lucas flasher unit.

If you haven't damaged it getting the flasher unit apart, it should still work after you reassemble it.

Jim

That's what I'm hoping, and it will be the first one I try. When i get a round tuit, that is, more important things to do today.

And it does, perfectly. Either with no pilot light, or the repro. Lucas outside-coil lamp, or the cheap basic one, which has been the most successful. I was able to test all but one of the various flasher units, all the non-Lucas ones (presumably all electronic) are now deficient in some way, whether it be fast-flashing or no pilot light, or both. I cannot say if they were originally fine. So the problem is surely somewhere in the vehicle wiring or one (or more) of the lamps. A system rebuild is now the only way forward. One of my winter jobs. Let's hope it's not a frigid winter. For reference: The voltage in the vehicle, supplied by the Regulator, is 11.9V. The battery I used for the test rig was at 12.6V, so not much difference at all. I also took some close-up photos of the internals of the Lucas unit, so I can keep a note of how it works. Testing finished when one of my mini jumper cables decided to fall onto the wrong battery terminal. Instant smoke release, and termination of the jumper as a useable item. C'est la vie, no lasting damage done. i could even rewire the croc. clips with new wire if I really wanted to. I think this saga will be on hold now until I perform the dissection and rebuild of the flasher system on the car. I sure hope it works after that! Thanks for the help and thoughts.