7-23-2007
Symptoms: blinker
lights would not flash and there was a loud buzzing from the
flasher relay.
Somehow the flasher relay filled with water while it sat over
winter.
With the cover removed, I found the leads on the capacitor had disintigrated:
The capacitor
markings were still intact and it is a 3.3 µF radial
electrolytic capacitor, 50V.
I replaced it with a wet tantalum (more accurate) 3.3 µF
capacitor:
Problem solved !!!
I did a little
research on the strobe IC chip, which is a U2043B: .pdf file One can speed up or
slow down the speed the blinkers flash by using a higher or lower
value capacitor. This would be
useful when converting to LED's to slow the flasher speed back to
normal. A higher capacitance
will slow it down and a lower capacitance will speed it up. One
could also tweak the resistor value
for the same effect:
The spec sheet for
the IC chip says it has built-in burned out bulb detection, so I
tried it out by
removing one of the bulbs, and sure enough the blinkers on that
side doubled in speed.
If you don't want to mess with repairing the old flasher relay, the Triumph part number is:
5558631-001 list price = $64.47
Electro-mechanical
Hella and Wehrle (and perhaps numerous other brands) are
available for about $10
and the
3-prong unit is used in the 1971-1979 VW Beetle. The lug markings
on the back are 31, 49, 49a
(exact
match is important)
This page has been visited times since July
23, 2007
Donco, '04 TBS