Hello

There is a very large class of people that own 65/66 Mustangs that, as far as I can tell, anyway, have been, for the most part, ignored entirely. They don't really want that 100 pt. show car that is so nice and was soooo expensive that they're afraid to drive it, they also don't want to make their car capable of achieving warp factor three. They just want this car that they dearly love to be able to cruise around smoothly and reliably, without having it dump them out on the side of the road or have it start making weird noises or belching out big clouds of funky-smelling smoke. And I think, truth be told, that this is by far the largest class of Mustang owners. They take their car to some technician when what they actually need is a mechanic, and this, frequently, does not work out very well at all for the owner. They don't want to re-engineer the entire car, they just want someone to fix what broke. These are the people that I am trying help out with this blog. Some problems require a little bit of back and forth, as in, "Try this." "I tried that and it didn't change anything."
" Oh. well, you probably need to try that." " I tried that and it helped, but it still isn't quite right." "Now you need to try this...." If you go to http://www.allfordmustangs.com/ and then go to the classics forums, you will be able to do that with a pretty hefty gathering of some very knowledgeable people that also happen to be very friendly. None of that ridiculous one-upmanship, no flaming or abuse, none of that stuff. Just good, solid advice from people that know what they are talking about.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

1965 and 1966 Mustang emergency flashers












Here's how this stuff is supposed to work. The two yellow arrows in the picture indicate where the flasher pot plugs into the harness. The emergency flashers have their own flasher pot, also part number 552, which is not the flasher pot that operates the turn signals. The middle picture shows you the two plug connectors that interupt the turn signal plug-in connector towards the base of the steering column. You just unplug the turn signal switch, and then plug the two connectors from the emergency flashers into the two connectors that you just unplugged. It isn't possible to plug them in the wrong way, there's only one way that they will all go together. The first picture shows a red arrow, which is pointing at the wire that plugs into the back of the cigarette lighter, and a green arrow that is pointing at the wire that plugs into a blue wire with a white stripe that is coming out of the fuse box. Nothing to it.

19 comments:

Unknown said...

In the middle picture what do the two bullet connectors link into?

Veronica said...

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what those two connectors plug into. I've never seen them attached to anything on a car. One of them could be used as a power source for an accessory of some sort, since it has constant power, but the blue wire would only have power when the emergency flashers were on, and it would on/off power that is blinking like the flashers. I've been trying to figure out why Ford made that harness like that for a quite a while, have had lengthy conversations with people smarter than me about, and, so far, have come up with nothing. The harness in the picture is a new old stock harness from Ford that they boxed up in the mid 60s. I have a few of those and they are all like that, having those two wires. They don't effect the way the emergency flashers operate. I've also got a couple of n.o.s. 66 underdash harnesses, and they don't have anything in the area of the turn signal switch connector for those two wires to plug into. I'm going to keep thinking about that, though. It must be for something, and, unless Ford also used that harness for a non-Mustang application, they must be there for a reason.

66GTK said...

I asked my father (who worked at the Dearborn Plant for many, many years) about a the single wire orange yellow and blue plugs with the 90 degree plugs on them that are at the far end of the harness. These two plugs can stretch over to the dimmer foot switch easily. he was perplexed by these two wires in my harness and told he never noticed them on the line. He then asked me if I knew what the two "bullet connectors" that you guys mentioned were for. Of course I had no idea, so he explained it to me. Not all cars had this harness accessory (if you have an NOS or readable harness tag on the car, you will notice the C5ZF tag or wiremarking screened onto the orange yellow wire coming from the cigar lighter). These plugs, he informed me, were for government use, usually secondary grille lights, rear or front window cherries, or roof mounted emergeny lights.

I had not thought of that, and he was more that willing to show off his knowledge with me.

Veronica said...
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Veronica said...

Thank you, Mark. This is by far the most plausible explaination that I've heard about those two connectors. As I said earlier, I've always been pretty much clueless about what those things were for. This makes sense. Again, thank you.

Kim Massey said...

I can only either get one of the front turn signals or both of the rear turn signals to flash. I can not get all four to flash at same time. Any ideas or comments?

Veronica said...

When you turn on the emergency flashers, what is it that you can do to make either the rear lights flash or one of the front? Is that something that you can control, or is it the car that decides? If the situation is that, when you hit the switch, it's anybody's guess which lights will start flashing, that could be something as simple as a bunch of corrosion on the back of the switch or something is loose and rattley inside the switch. Also, do the turn signals seem to work correctly?

Kim Massey said...

Sorry for not being very clear. I am changing the wiring at the emergency switch. By changing order of wires I can only get one of the front turn signals or both rear turn signals to work at any given time. I can never get all four flashing. I am thinking it's the switch but was looking for advice before purchasing new switch.

Veronica said...

Ok, that makes sense. What you have on this switch is one wire bringing power from the flasher and three wires going out to the destinations. One of those wires goes to right/front turn sigal and right/front dash indicator, one goes to left/front turn signal and left/front dash indicator, and the third goes to both rear turn signals. I would try this. Make sure that the blue wire that brings power is hooked up correctly, disconnect the other three, and then hook up each of those three wires, one at a time, to the same place on the the output, and see if all three of the wires make something flash. Then repeat this on the other two outputs from the switch. If it turns out that you have one or two of the switch outputs that don't make anything happen, but at least one output that will make all three of the output wires start something flashing, then you have one or two dead outputs in the switch itself, and will be needing to relace the switch. Let me know what you find out.

Kim Massey said...

Thanks. It's the switch. Turns out switch is an aftermarket switch that is double pole double throw as opposed to oem switch which is single pole triple throw. I had to latch one terminal to blue power and doubled up the wires to front turn signals on one terminal. All works perfectly. Thanks for the help.

LeLu said...

Today I installed the Mr. Mustang emergency flasher wiring kit and am having the same issue as Kim (only the right front blinker works.) It is the switch that is wrong. I had to run a wire from post to post (with the exception of the blue wire) in order to get all four lights to work. I emailed Mr. Mustang to let him know about this defect in his kit. Thanks for the write up Veronica!

Veronica said...

I'm glad that this helped you out, and, it appears that your car is progressing nicely. I love that color.

Unknown said...

Just wanted to thank you Veronica. Just about every problem I've run into on my 66, I've found you've had the answer to...mainly on the forums and now here. I bought my car partially completed and I've been studying wiring schematics for hours trying to figure out what this circuit board looking thingy was at the end of my flasher harness. Your pictures here showed me that the switch had been slid off the board and was gone. No schematic was going to show me that. I see that you're in Houston, do you have a shop here?

Kevin

Veronica said...

Thank you, Kevin. And, yes, sometimes the right photograph is a lot more informative than any schematic can be.

There are plenty of shops in Houston, but, my name isn't on any of them. I'm strictly a hobbyist.

Unknown said...

Ran down to John's Mustang and picked up the flasher switch...mine was the soldered on type so I cut the leads off and used connectors to connect the wores to the switch. When I first switch on the flashers I hear the main flasher (not emergency flasher) click once then no more. All the turn signals work but not the flashers. If I disconnect the battery for a while, the first time I turn the flasher switch on, main flasher clicks once then no more. If I turn the flasher switch off then back on it won't do anything...have to disconnect the battery to get it to click just one time again. I've got brake light/tail light problems as well so I'll head on over to your post on them

Veronica said...

The flasher that's kind of near the ashtray is the one for the emergency flashers. I would start by disconnecting that flasher and hit the emergency flashers just to see what happens. What should happen is absolutely nothing. If that's what does happen, I would double check and make sure that I had hooked up those wires to the switch correctly.

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

I wanted to leave my notes regarding installing a new 1965-1966 Scott Drake emergency flasher kit onto my 1964 1/2 Mustang. This requires some customization (splicing) because the 1964 1/2 does not come with the plug connectors for the turn signal switch as the 65-66 has. In order to not butcher the car's under-dash wiring, I spiced the emergency flasher wires into the turn signal switch wires coming out of the base of the steering column. This way, they splices were made into a more replaceable part (the turn signal switch wires).

First, attaching your new #552 flasher pot into the connectors on the new emergency harness is exactly the same as for 65-66 cars. As Veronica points out, the emergency flasher unit needs a separate but identical flasher unit from the auto part store.

Second, utilizing the power lead from the cigarette lighter is also exactly the same as for 65-66 cars.

Here is where you have to customize for the 64 1/2. Starting with the colored wires that run between the two plug connectors on the new emergency flasher harness, here is how I spliced them:

solid blue: this brings power from the emergency flasher switch and should splice into the blue/yellow stripe wire in the turn signal harness.

white/blue stripe: this is the RF turn signal wire and should be spliced into the white/blue stripe wire in the turn signal harness.

green/white stripe: this is the LF turn signal wire and should be spliced into the green/white strip wire in the turn signal harness.

green/red stripe: this is the brake light wire and should be spliced into green brake light switch wire.

I did not need to splice these last two wires from the emergency flasher switch: yellow (i think this is for the horn relay) and blue with red stripe.

I understand that the "most correct" location for the emergency toggle switch is in the glove box. However, I did not feel that this was a very practical location. I wanted to install the switch itself in an easier reach place under the dash and found two nice options all the way to the left of the emergency brake handle. I ultimately choose the second option:

1) My dash already had a "D" shaped hole which is the perfect size and shape to insert the toggle switch through the dash pointing downward toward the floor of the car.

2) The dash already had a second smaller hole near the "D" shaped hole. I installed the "Emer Flasher" cover plate inserting the two screws up through these holes without any drilling. The toggle switch is neatly installed within easy reach and does not interfere with the emergency brake handle or my knee.

The one "flaw" that I have found with this installation is that the emergency flashers will not flash when stepping on the brake pedal. If the emergency flashers are on and the brake pedal is pressed, the brake lights will come on solidly and will override the flashing. I could not find an alternative way of splicing to avoid this issue, but it seemed minor enough to be acceptable to me. I am happy with the installation and should have done it a long time ago. I hope it helps someone.




Veronica said...

Hi Chuck.
First let me apologize for taking so long to get back to you on this. I've been a little under the weather and haven't been spending much time on my computer. Sorry about that. I'm glad to hear that you got this sorted out. I must have the 64 1/2 diagram for the emergency flashers around here somewhere, so, I'll dig that out and post it, but, you seem to have it under control. Thanks for taking the time to post your results.