89FrontPorsche

OK...car is an 89 S4.

Very odd turn signal behavior.

Right turn signal works fine. Left one works only after the car warms up some and most recently, after fiddling with cleaning the relay contacts and checking the wiring that goes to the stalks, I'm at a loss because it stopped working altogether.

Used to not work when the car was cold...then for giggles one day, I left the stalk pushed down for "left" while driving on a bumpy road. The green light indicator on the inst cluster flickered after a time and then the system worked as normal for the rest of the day.

Wiggling the relay makes no difference.

None of the contacts on the board seem out of position.

I'm theorizing it's the stalk itself since it's only "left" that's giving me a problem. I have a spare stalk cluster and will try that next.

Other issue is downshifting to 3rd when off the gas. I'll put that in another thread.

Alan

It pretty much has to be the combination switch, the flasher relay is the same for both sides - wiring, contacts, flasher - everything - the switch just connects one side or the other to it.

The combo switch is not exactly designed to be serviced - its riveted together - but if you drill them out and replace with screws you can in fact dissassemble, clean and repair - be careful they kind of explode a bit when you take them apart .... and re-assembly is not totally obvious... but doable...

I repaired mine (different self-canceling issue) years ago and it has worked flawlessly since...

Alan

89FrontPorsche

It's back to its "old self" again, not working when cold and after driving for awhile, works just as it should with no interruption, no cutting out...nothing.

I'm leaning towards the combo switch..and am familiar with the "opening it up surprise" from the past. Been nare...dunn nat, got the t-shirt.

Just seems odd that it worketh not..then after some time, it seems to make contact again somehow and works just fine. I've seen gremlins before but...this is too weird.

Mrmerlin

you could try to spray some electrical cleaner into the switch,
put a towel under the switch spray the cleaner then work the switch.

89FrontPorsche

OK, digging deeper into the ordeal, a swap in multifunction switch yielded same results. Also..it's not the relay itself. I put a meter on the poles that activate the relay and lo and behold, pressing on the relay/fuse board makes it connect, disconnect.

So....unscrewed the thing, pulled it forward and found nothing of particular interest in the back of the relay board. However, moving the board around resulted in the intermittent connection and I spent a couple of hours wiggling this wire and that with mixed results.

Seems like it may come down to a thorough cleaning of every terminal on the board...a task I don't look forward to. One at a time, scrape, buff, tighten, re-install. Looks to be a couple of hundred connections back there. However, if I knew which plug-in connector to go to would be a good start. I noticed they are alphabetized and that should make it all easier.

I thank the both of you for suggestions. The switch works fine. It's a loose connection somewhere in the gray mass of wires "behind the curtain".

As an interesting side-note...the car downshifts and takes off now like it's supposed to. Wasn't doing that for the first couple of weeks I had it...it would bog down and not get fuel and not really accelerate in the "scalded cat" fashion I'm used to. It does now. So....dirty connections must abound back there.

Things that make ya go, "hm".

michaelathome

Look at the wiring under the fender.

Make sure that the wiring is intact and not frayed or that there is no rust has developed in the socket.

Michael

9two8

Quite a few years back now I had a very similar problem with intermiitent flashers, it turned out to be a break in the printed circuit on the back of the inst cluster.
Auto electrician friend bridged the break and soldered appropriate wire in place.., been fine ever since.

Ken
80 928 S
5 Speed

UK

Alan

Well start with the places the connections come into & out of the panel -trace internals from there...

J21, T22, C13

Alan

Tom in Austin

Good grief, now my double-speed-flashing right signal has the "warm-up" issue too. Left one always works correctly.

Is the instrument cluster a likely part of the problem for this 'one side works, the other side doesn't' scenario? There's just one light for the turn signals in the cluster, seems it should be like the relay and work the same for either direction, right or left?

Alan

Yes - seems unlikely to be the cluster just because the cluster stuff works exactly the same for both sides...like the flasher itself

Perhaps connections or switch in your case too...

Alan

89FrontPorsche

Alan, so far I'm liking your suggestion the best. Makes logical sense. It's very, very odd, to say the least but intermittent electrical problems are common on these cars I guess.

Haven't had time to get down there but it's the first thing I'll do when I get a day off.

Thanks to everyone who replied. Much obliged.