indicators have gone haywire!

[alhendo]

hi there.i've recently joined the club, so this is my first post. hope someone can help. my indicators have started to play up - here are the symptoms...sometimes they won't go on at all, sometimes they go on and are intermittent ie they work for a while then stop altogether. when they are working the left hand indicators are very slow to flash whereas the right hand ones seem to flash at the right speed. the hazards on the other hand work fine. any suggestions. i've read on the forum before about suspect something like "flasher/indicator units" under the steering column.i've located this and cleaned up the connections with emery but to no avail. if its likely to be this is it something the club stocks or can I get it from a motor factor. i'm kind of hoping it will be as "simple" as this but here's hoping.......incidentally the viva in question is dan lawrences' old 1971 sl so some of you out there will probably know it already. any help would be gratefully received.thanks.alan

[droopsnoot]

A few things to check:

First, check that the light units themselves are properly earthed. It might help to run a separate earth wire from a known good point to one of the mounting bolts, to be sure. A bad earth will cause all sorts of trouble.

Next thing to check is whether the bulb holders in the light unit are corroded - this can have similar effects to a bad earth.

The light units are in the line of fire for a lot of c**p off the road, so you can find trouble like this quite often. Sometimes all you need to do is take the light unit out, clean everything (like you did for the flasher unit) and put it back together. Oh and also check the connections for the wires into the main loom - just inside the inner wings towards the front of the engine bay.

[alhendo]

thanks for the advice.will try and get round to tracing the problem.

[alhendo]

just a quick update to let you know how I got on. I nipped down to my local motor factor and bought a new flasher unit thingy(i know its the lazy option). I plugged it in and hey presto they're working again! only thing is the right hand side ones seem to be slightly faster than the left hand side ones(which seem about the right speed) , so I think you're right about taking the time to clean everything up....that should solve it totally.its just a matter of getting the spare time to do it...............thanks for your help.