I posted this on another forum but not much help so I will try here.

2000 Chevy 2wd Silverado. Has LED blinkers front and rear. Left turn works fine, right turn works in dash but not with blinkers. This truck does not have the directional flasher. It does have a new LED flasher. All other lights work including parking lights front/rear. I have checked for power at blinker socket and has power with park lights but no intermittent power for signal. I should also note that I had the front clip and bed off all winter for a engine/tranny swap. I have looked for a ground wire I missed, but everything seems to have a home. Any help on this would be very much appreciated.

 

When you say you tested at the socket do you mean the socket for the bulb? Or the socket at the end of the frame rail where all the separate rear lamp harnesses plug in? Because that's where I would check, to be sure power is getting at least that far; you can isolate the issue to forward or behind that socket you've got half the battle won.

Richard

 

Good call. I tested socket at front turn signal. Thanks, never thought of that. Will check after work today. Thank you.

 

OK, so you don't have a right signal front OR rear. Are your LED's drop-in replacement bulbs, or full housings? If they're bulb replacements, I'd go back with regular bulbs on the problem locations and troubleshoot from there - or swap with known working LED's from the other side. Also, in general the wedge-base LED's if installed backwards will not work correctly like a regular bulb will.

Richard

 

Correct, both front and back right turn signals do not work. The LED lenses are complete housings. I did try to put a regular amber bulb in place of the LED with no luck in flashing. Would light up with parking lights the same as the led housing.

 

The housings have pigtails similar to a wedge bulb and you attach the truck's harness sockets, yeah? Very easy to get the polarity mixed up.

Richard

 

Correct. I have it hooked up the same as the turn signal that works.
I appreciate your help Richard.

 

Everything I've read about using LED bulbs in the turn signals is they need resistors installed in-line because the LEDs don't draw enough current. If you didn't use resistors for those, that's what I think you're missing. There are several write ups, but if you search for em, should be able to find the right ones easily.

 

You don't necessarily have to have the resistors for that. They make flashers that are smarter and can handle it. I also have all LEDs for my exterior lighting; new housings in the rear, and replacement bulbs in the front; and a replacement flasher that works just fine without resistors. Like this one. My OE flasher did the "hyper flash" thing you see the little fart-can imports doing all the time. For the same reason no doubt. I've heard of other fixes for this but have no idea whether they work or not.

The resistors aren't "in-line" electrically, although that's what it looks like from the way they hook up; they're actually in parallel with the lights. All they do is draw enough extra current to make the load look normal to the flasher that is expecting lots of light bulb current.

You DO however need resistors in the brake light circuit for the cruise to work right. I found that out the hard way. There might be some sort of tuning or something that can be done, a voltage threshold or the like on the brake light line that you could set, that would cure this. But apparently the LED bulbs don't pull the brake light line down to ground effectively enough for the cruise. It thinks the brakes are on all the time. I put ONE resistor in the brake light circuit and that made the voltage on the brake light line go low enough for the cruise to work again.

If one side of the truck works but not the other, I doubt it's a flasher problem, as such, since both sides use the same flasher. If your setup uses the OE sockets I'd suggest doing the simple thing and just turning around the way the plugs go into the bulb sockets, and see if it changes. LEDs are often polarized and require 12V to be specifically on one pin and ground on the other, and will not work if hooked up the other way.

 

yeah, flashers made for LEDs typically are on a timer rather than capacitor draw.
as for the sockets, just meter back every connection until you do get signal current. i'm guessing since it's a problem front & rear, it ain't a bent pin at the final socket (whether in the truck's connector or on the wedge base plugging into it).