Follow me on an adventure where I use the wrong parts to figure out I need more parts. When troubleshooting my alternator in my 66 beetle I noticed the turn single indicator was not flashing in the dash, and the cause could be the missing bulb. Oh if it were so easy.
** Bear with me, I have no idea what I am doing and learning as I go. If you know a better way, please share. **
My 66 was converted to 12v, in that process they replaced the flasher relay with a Novita EP35.
It has 3 wires and a fourth tab just hanging out begging for me to use that for the dash bulb. But before I randomly plug stuff in and maybe cause a fire I used a test light. The test light is connected between ground and the connection on the relay.
Then I tested on the light socket in the speedometer and the flasher relay and it blinked. Next up, I tested the bulb and it lit up to full brightness.
All good, right? Not so much. After putting the bulb in the dash it only lit up a tiny bit when the blinkers were on or all the time with the blinkers off, what is the deal? Well the problem is the speedometer wires are positive and this was sending a positive as well. We need a negative. I figured I would test, I did not have a relay, but I did have a NPN transistor in a box of robot parts. It is not rated for this load, so this was just a test to prove a relay would fix the issue.
Damn that writing is small, a 2N4403 is not what you should use, I just wanted to see if it would work.
With the 2N4403 sketchily hooked up, the bulb blinked correctly in the dash. So I have two options, get another relay and switch the negative. Or a quick google on www.thesamba.com showed Wolfsburg West makes a correct relay. I needed cork gaskets to do a valved adjustment soon, so I ordered the part. I might buy a relay just out of curiosity. Because it is a mystery now 🙂 Stay tuned for part two where I actually fix this. But if you plug in a bulb to your speedo and it is dim, check the relay and the polarity.
Parts mentioned: https://www.wolfsburgwest.com/cart/DetailsList.cfm?ID=111953227D
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