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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - Blinker issues

Recently my blinkers stopped working. Originally my car did not have them as it was a late 51. During the restore I added them. I finally got to looking at it and thankfully it was just the flasher unit. The cheapest possible fix. The flasher unit I had that went bad had a mounting bracket for a single screw. The new flasher unit does not. It is a simple three prong unit. The blinkers now work, BUT now the flasher indicator on the dash is on always, but very dim. You can still see it flash when the blinkers are on. I have read the flasher unit does not need to be grounded. I tried grounding the housing of the unit with no fix. Any thoughts?
Rich King TD 8732

Endless problems finding a flasher can in todays market that works or continues to work. Most have moved to solid state components that are not compatible with positive earth vehicles. If your car is converted to negative earth you may have better luck.

At present I have had to disconnect my flasher indicator bulb because it was providing an earth that compromised the can I purchased functionality.

Graeme
G Evans

Hi Rich,
Have you tried testing the flasher unit off the car? If it is one of the older, electo mechanical units (round can) connect "B" to a battery, "P" to a single 2.2 watt bulb (normal screw fix) and "L" to two 21 watt bulbs in parallel. The "other side" of the three bulbs goes to the remaining battery terminal. The bulbs should then flash. It doesn't matter which way round the battery is connected. Look at www.autoelectric supplies.co.uk and www.vehicleproducts.co.uk to see lots of automotive electric equipment including flasher units priced £4.70


Jan T
J Targosz

I've got a book up in the shop by Rick "Atchley (sp?)" that provides a very clear explanation of how the thermal relay in our simple "in the can" flasher works and how to hook it up. I'll take a look this evening and post something useful. In the meantime, I replaced my flasher with a unit from NAPA. That unit failed after about a week but the second replacement from NAPA has worked for over two years now. They are very cheap. Because I thought the can looked ugly in the engine compartment I moved it to under the scuttle and made up the connections using a TD headlight socket (I started a thread on that and someone, I think Dave but I'll check, kindly gave me the socket. Works great. Thanks. Makes changing out the can easy). Jud
J K Chapin

That thread is in the archives: http://www2.mg-cars.org.uk/cgi-bin/gen5?runprog=mgbbs&access=&mode=archiveth&subject=8&subjectar=8&thread=201410061805241042

Jud
J K Chapin

This thread was discussed on 03/12/2014

MG TD TF 1500 index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG TD TF 1500 BBS is active now.