Getting to the wiring behind the climate controls (turn signal weirdness)?

[Ron]

Both the illumination for the cluster and the climate controls (“AC illumination”, I think the manual calls it). These are the lights that should be on when the headlight switch is in the second or third position, and whose brightness is controlled by the dial on the shifter plate (rheostat, the docs say). Currently, those lights only work when the right turn signal flashes. Meaning specifically that they blink with the right turn signal, and that’s the only time they’re on. I’m not sure how I managed to get it to do that, exactly...

— Joe

If you have disturbed the White Plug going to the Cluster:
Note the pins for the Right Indicator and the Illumination are right next to each other (14=GW & 15=RW, ...AC lights tied through Rheostat)
Could be that the terminal connection on the printed circuit for Illumination (15) is misaligned and touching the Right Indicator connection/terminal (14)...??

[DMC5180]

If you have disturbed the White Plug going to the Cluster:
Note the pins for the Right Indicator and the Illumination are right next to each other (14=GW & 15=RW, ...AC lights tied through Rheostat)
Could be that the terminal connection on the printed circuit for Illumination (15) is misaligned and touching the Right Indicator connection/terminal (14)...??

I would tend to agree and was thinking about that earlier. The trace tab for the illumination lights would need to be displaced a lot though. So much so that it doesn’t make contact with the normal contact in the connector. Since, He said, he has no cluster illumination except with the right signal.


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[jangell]

Quick follow-up: I removed the binnacle (everything looked good), the center console, the radio, and finally realized that everything worked properly once I unplugged the black bulkhead connector. That meant the problem was in the taillight assembly itself.

In the end, it was my own stupidity and customizations. I have backup sensors, a high center stop light and the marker lights as turn signals mod, all coming off taps into the right taillight plug. When I reinstalled everything, I wasn't paying attention and basically connected the wire from the tail lights to one from the turn signals. This explains the dash lights flashing with the turn signals, since the tail light circuit goes live when the dash lights are turned on from the headlight switch.

I undid the marker light mod for now. I had put LEDs in there at some point in the past anyway, and only just realized that the mod relies on incandescent, since it sets the pins to ground/ground, 12v/12v, 12v/ground and ground/12v, and since LEDs are polarized you can't do the 12v/ground vs ground/12v thing. I'll throw together some simply microcontroller-based solution for it if I want to enable it (been meaning to play with those DigiSparks I bought a while ago).

Thanks everyone for your help. At least I still have a much clearer idea of the wiring in the center console in and the binnacle area, so it's wasn't all bad

-- Joe

[Bitsyncmaster]

I sell a side light blinker board for $35. But if you want to play with a micro, I can see that to be fun.