Tonight while driving back from out in the sticks, all the indicator (turn signal and high beam) lights in my dash would randomly come on, and at the same time, my headlights would wink out. I couldn't find a way to duplicate it, but it would happen anywhere from a quick random wink and then back to normal, to being that way for about half a second. Whenever the indicator lights would be on, the headlights would be off, and when the headlights would come back on, the indicator lights would go back off. Could this be an issue in the headlight switch maybe? I haven't looked at the wiring diagram yet, but I didn't think the high beam and turn signal indicator lights were connected to that circuit at all. Any thoughts on what to check for this? Like I said earlier, it was a completely random thing, and I couldn't purposefully get it to happen at all.

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'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

Headlights winking on and off is usually the circuit breaker inside the headlight switch. Unless you're brave, talented and cheap like me you just buy a replacement switch. The odd dash light functioning is probably due to poor grounding of the instrument cluster. Really odd things happen when you loose grounds.

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Joshua

If it was one or the other I would've suspected one of those two things, but they're coordinated when it happens. Dash lights come on, headlights go out; dash lights go back out, headlights come on. Now if the dash lights were wired through the switch, I could see the switch being bad (and I'll find out for sure tomorrow when I get back to my place to check the diagram). Looks like I'm gonna have to hit the books on this one

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'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

bad ground somewhere.............

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

I'll be double checking my grounds at the dash either today or tomorrow. But wouldn't all the lights just randomly go out if there was a bad ground, instead of everything coming on (and the headlights going off)?

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'74 Duster w/ HEI ignition, beat to snot suspension, A904, 8.25" 3.55 SG rear, still being tuned up and gets 17 MPG

Know how they always build a better idiot? That's me

This has happened when I rebuilt the '76, all the dash lights came on when I pulled the headlight switch to 'on'...problem there was the ground for the headlights at the front of the engine bay had a break in it (no ground), re-did it with a heavier guage wire and made sure to tie the connection into the - side of the battery since it was about 12" away.

Not long after that the headlights went out (and would randomly come back on) but everything else was fine, the switch finally died, and had to replace with a new one...


-D.Idiot