Philthy82

Hey all,

I've just come across this place and hope you can help me out! I've got an '81 Accord hatch and the turn signals have recently stopped working. Working the indicator stalk has no results; nothing on the instrument panel, no clicking sound, none of the external lights flash. Putting the hazard lights on, however, works fine with all bulbs lighting. I've looked a bit into this and the fuse looks fine - I swapped it with another fuse of identical rating to check, and no difference.

A mechanic friend of mine said it sounded like the flasher can and showed me where to find it - the little metal drum that the clicking indicator noise comes from. He suggested there would be one can for indicators and another can for the hazard lights, and at the very least I could swap the two around until I could find a replacement part. Well with only the hazards working I could only locate the hazard can by following the sound, but I didn't see any similar can near it - rather, there are two larger cans tied to the hazard can by a couple of rubber rings, one of them looks to be bolted to the underside of the dash, but they don't look interchangeable at all.

So I guess I'm wondering where to go from here. Is there a way I can narrow the problem down to either the stalk assembly, the indicator can or something else? I just want to know what's causing the problem before I start looking for replacement parts.

Cheers,
Philip

Duane_in_Japan

A wire diagram and a volt meter is all you need, can you get one and we can guide you, have you taken the area apart to gain access to the stalk.

Philthy82

Thanks for your reply! I'll see what I can do to come up with a wiring diagram and a pic of the stalk assembly, may be able to get to it tonight. If I can't find one in the gregory's manual I've got for the car (don't think I've seen one in it before) is there anywhere online that might have wiring diagrams for older Hondas?

Duane_in_Japan

Many libraries carry manuals too. Let me know if you still need help after you do your on line search.

Philthy82

Well, I got it sorted finally! Turns out it was the flasher can, which is separate to the hazard can and just a little harder to locate, but I found it. Had no luck finding a replacement flasher can that fit the particular 'T'-shaped plug Honda used back then, so I found a generic one with it's connecters in an 'L' configuration, and took off the plastic housing for the wiring plug under the dash and rearranged the connectors to fit. Sounds easy but I swear, that housing was made of some sort of spaceage material with the look of plastic but the hardness of metal - I basically had to chew the thing up with tin snips for 45 mins (all this time with my feet in the air and my head on the floor, not the most comfortable positions) until it basically disintegrated. And that was just to get one of the 2 plugs loose of the housing! Thankfully it works and the flasher can was the problem (I was dreading after all that trouble I'd find it was something else). I don't get any ticking noise with the new can at all unfortunately, but I think I can live without it. I ain't going under there again!

Anyway thanks for the help Duane, let's hope I never have to go through this again

Duane_in_Japan

Can you give a short explaination of where the two cans are for the archives please.