I am new here, so I hope you guys can help me out with this. I recently had our Mustang painted and am in the process of finishing it up ( was totally stripped down except the wiring and wheels) its mostly together now, but w/a few new problems. When I turn on the blinkers,(drivers side) 1 front & both rear blink @ once and the alt light in the dash now blinks. (We had our painter replace all of the lights and hook them up) I have the diagram, but not having much luck. Also there must be some backfeed somewhere, the car will only turn over in nutural, in all other gears the backuplights come on. Any suggestions would be helpfull.

 

As far as the blinking goes, that almost sounds like your emergency hazard flashers are turned on. Did you check for an emergency switch under the dash? If you have one, try flipping it and then hit the turn signal again.

As far as the issue with the backup light and neutral starting, I would suggest checking the wiring going to the neutral safety switch at the transmission (assuming you have a C4 in there). Maybe he got the wiring reversed, or maybe the switch is shorting out from a tranny fluid leak or something.

Electrical gremlins are funny and common on this car. I replaced my entire wiring harness with a universal one from Painless Performance. I had everything wired perfectly, but whenever I would hit the brakes, the dash and headlights would turn on. Also, the turn signals would only flash on one side. I spent hours going back over my work only to find out that it was a bulb in my rear tail light that hadn't been seated properly. That's all it was! Nothing wrong with the wiring job at all. The bulb wasn't seated correctly, and it was somehow shorting the system out causing all sorts of trouble.

Check the things I mentioned and get back with us. I'm sure with all the help on this forum we'll be able to get it figured out.

 

Don't forget the grounds. What you described is a feed thru due to a ground not hooked up. Its a common thing to miss during re-assembly. Also I would replace the old thermal flashers with more modern solid state units, its money well spent. They will work regardless if one bulb is out and this makes troubleshooting easier.

 

I had the same thing. It was the turn signal bulb. It had corosion that bridged over thru the parking lamp circuit.

 

Guys thanks for the reply. Just a little history on car (was a present for my wife) so no pressure there. Before it went to paint everything worked fine, all lights/bulbs are new. I had the painter put them in before he brought out the car. I will check the emergency switch under the dash, didn't even know there was one. Everything else that I put together is plug in type of connections, could it have anything to do with the voltage regulator?

 

How is the front right socket. I think the problem lies there since it doesn't turn on.

 

Thanks for the input. I checked a few of the areas that I thought were a problem, but they all checked out. I feel that it might be quicker to start by checking for a direct short. I unhooked the battery (negative side) and attached my tester (the pointer) to the post with a hose clamp, then used the clip to attach the cable end. If there is a direct short the light will come on showing a backfeed through the ground. It did. To check it further I began pulling fuses, when I hit the right one the light went out. Now I know which group of wires are having a problem. Tonight I am going to go one step further and hook up a positive wire to the battery, then you touch either end of the fuse clips, which even narrows it down further, Will keep you posted.

 

Just an update, after taking out the dash cluster, found a few of the bulbs were bad, still could'nt find the short. So started taking out the tail lights and backup lights to check on them. I found that the new tail light housing socket was damaged. There are 2 very small tabs inside and when you push and turn in the bulb they connect and created a direct short. I could'nt beleive it, been working on it all week. When I went to put in the dash cluster the whole car went dead! So getting alittle closer, I am hoping to find that problem over the weekend!

 

I will be reading this thread. I find it very interesting for some reason. The fact that one small gremlin can cause all of this is intriguing.

 

Well, finally got the last problem found and repaired this weekend. The last problem was an old repair where a wired had been clipped/stripped and twisted together. The connection was poor, everytime I pushed the cluster in the dash the power went dead, it would cause the wire to the ignition to seperate, when I would pull it out the wires would re-connect, pulling the wires tight. So finally done, took a week to find them all!