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78 Monaco turn signal issues

Detective D

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Hello all!
I am working on getting a 78 Monaco former County Detective's sedan roadworthy.

Step one was polish the original paint and see if was worth a lick. While I was messing around under the hood, I noticed the spades for the horn(s) were unhooked. So I stuck them back on. Pulled the car out into the sun to check the paint. Soon after, I realized the horns were unhooked because I had a short in the column as the horn would sound with the wheel in a certain spot. Further, the parking lights would come on and stay on in a certain spot. I unhooked the horns for the time being again.

So, the adventure began! Found my front bulbs were both getting pulled apart because the sockets were coming out of the back of the front housings(turn signals) Pulled the bulbs, bulbs were only thing holding sockets to housing, sockets are hanging in the air right now. More on this in a minute, but I installed new bulbs. Did not fix anything.

Dug into the column. Now, I am not sure because I have never had one of these apart, but unless I am crazy or there is something unique I did not find an actual horn switch under the center wheel/hub cover. Oh, I have a non tilt column with the 3 spoke steering wheel with the little 4 inch circle cover in the middle. I did find wires coming out of what may or may not be switches under the 3 rubberish covers on the 3 spokes of the wheel. Does the center cover not sound the horn, only the three "soft" sections on the spokes?

Anyway, onward! Pulled the wheel. Turn signal switch looked pretty bad. Only really clicked into place nice for the "right" signal, pulling the stalk down made a sickly decidedly not "click" but did hold in place. Decided I would replace it. Found a NOS online, got it in.

Current state: With all 4 bulbs good, pulling hazard switch makes them all blink. The "green arrow" in the dash for the right signal blinks. the left is either burnt out or otherwise. Push stalk up(right turn), signals flash. Pull it down though, no blinks. Green arrow is not lit up in dash, but both front and rear bulbs are lit on the outside.

I determined the flasher is good because the hazards work, and right signal is fine now.
I found my horn relay, had a hole melted in two sides. Yikes! Will replace with aftermarket this weekend. I will keep an eye on it but i imagine this was from being parked with the horns unhooked but current going to them anyway from the short.

Questions:
Does the green arrow bulb need to function for the entire system to work, or is this a sign of something grounding out?
Is there supposed to be an actual horn switch in the center of the wheel under the round pad?
This car has side markers. Yellow up front, red in back. The passenger side both got mangled, lenses are gone. Driver side good. Are these part of the system, or only with the headlights on?

Back to those front bulbs, as I look at the sockets, it looks to me as though they were press fit at the factory and so far as I can tell are not going to play nice going back into the housings. Is there a method for this? Is there an aftermarket solution? Sourcing new housings that are otherwise fine seems like a waste of "pretty good" original stuff plus money really.

Thanks in advance.
 
A picture would help, but...
Only the three soft pads on each spoke of the wheel sounds the horn. The middle pad is there for style only!!
I don't know if this matters but ( I am not good with electrical), the horns are grounded through the mounting bolts. When my 1976 Cordoba with the 3-spoke wheel had horn issues (phantom beeping) it was because the horns (or maybe just one of them) failed internally.

Good luck!
 
Tha
A picture would help, but...
Only the three soft pads on each spoke of the wheel sounds the horn. The middle pad is there for style only!!
I don't know if this matters but ( I am not good with electrical), the horns are grounded through the mounting bolts. When my 1976 Cordoba with the 3-spoke wheel had horn issues (phantom beeping) it was because the horns (or maybe just one of them) failed internally.

Good luck!
That does help! At least I won't be chasing after an imaginary horn button!
I will keep that in mind about the ground, but I also had oddity with my lights going on so I think there was more to it then that with my car.
 
Just thought i would update this as I go...
Shortly after my last post the right signal also stopped blinking, so both sides would light but no blinking.

I finally got my 1978 Chrysler service manual in the mail. Started looking through it, awesome book! Covers everything!
From the table of contents...
"Chapter 8: Electrical. See electrical service manual #1234567"

What.

So I flip to Chapter 8, thinking, well, maybe they have some really basic stuff. Nope. Not even a page reminding the reader to get the other manual. Goes straight from 7-xx to 9-1. No blank page, no reason why they would skip chapter 8 if they weren't going to include it, just straight on forward into chapter 9!
Back to the internet! Score an electrical manual for $8 free shipping. Arrived 2 days later, fast! Perfect condition!
From the table of contents:
"8-1: Electrical"

Not kidding. Book starts with 8-1. No other chapters. I laughed out loud thinking, "what if someone that didn't ever see the main manual picked this up?" It is chapter 8, in a full book with a table of contents and everything. And on that table of contents, is one chapter, chapter 8. I can see why they did it, the electrical book is half as thick as the entire other manual, but lol at the formatting.

Anyway, I also work with a guy, that knew another guy that told him once about a guy in his car club that had a bunch of old mopar stuff so he will ask him about my turn signal sockets for the front of my car. Score! He actually had a set of NOS housings. Snapped those up, they even came preloaded with light bulbs in them.
Still no blinking. Time to start digging into this manual for where I can find a fuse or what might be shorted.

Huh. Would you look at that. Chrysler put a separate flasher module for the blinkers and the hazard lights. So the common advice troubleshooting of "pull the hazards and see if they blink" doesn't apply here. The hazard flasher is in the bulkhead under the dash sort of behind the radio. The turn signal flasher is tucked in behind the kickpanel, near the E-brake pedal. Mine was just hanging out on it's wire, tucked in snug by the kick panel. Pulled it, corrosion evident. Stuck the hazard flasher in, lookee here, my turn signals blink!

So long story short, there are two flasher modules on these cars in case anyone else runs into something like this.

I haven't tackled the horn yet, with the turn signals repaired and functioning properly it was a load off, and so last weekend I got really distracted by removing the original vinyl top to discover..... there is no rust under it at all. I scraped the glue and I could probably cut/polish the paint and it would be daily driver worthy. I have never seen anything like that in my life. This car is over 40 years old and the vinyl roof did zero damage to the metal, or even the paint. So I put a checkmark on the "win" side for that one.
 
@Detective D I'd love to see some pics of your Monaco, I have one too but not a police spec, just a civi 318 '78- would love to try and help and also see more of someone elses Monaco!
 
@Detective D I'd love to see some pics of your Monaco, I have one too but not a police spec, just a civi 318 '78- would love to try and help and also see more of someone elses Monaco!
I just came back to the forums here as i was messing with the car this afternoon. Haven't been on in a long time, my job ate my whole summer this year.
I don't have any decent pictures right now to upload on my PC. I need to get some transferred off my camera from when I picked it up where it still has the light blue vinyl top yet. Right now, the top if gone, trim is all off, and the interior is in my house.
I did buy some Crager "D" window black steelies to put on the car in place of the truly horrid looking chrome salad bowl shaped wheels it had when I got it. I just swapped them this afternoon after having them sitting for almost a year. My father in law needs a set of rollers to move his Magnum out of storage, so he is getting the pimp wheels lol. I was going to go Police wheels, I have the spare in the trunk yet, but people want crazy money for those for some reason without the caps even! So I got something similar, with bonus of getting to choose my offset so I put a pair of 275's on the back. I went one wider up front to 235 so the diameter matched, I didn;t think a 4 door would look too hot with the old "raked" stance.
It does look MEAN with the fat rubber under it.
I should post a couple pictures, even if it is a mess right now. Up here in WI I am not sure if another Monaco exists anymore. Salt was not kind to the 70's Mopar sedans, only ones that mostly handled it were the top model C bodies. Everything else rotted bad. Mine survived because the county garage probably washed it everytime it left and came back, and then auctioned it to a guy that used it to pull his pop up camper in the summer to upper Michigan for the next 25 years.
I will see about getting my pictures transferred on a rainy day hopefully soon. Right now I have to use the nice weather until it runs out! Winter is almost here in WI.
 
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