[Abs-Zero]
Current Project - 1947 Vauxhall 10
Offside trafficator service - 2 November 2008
Not actually much wrong with this either - when operating the trafficator switch on the steering column with the ignition switched on, the off side trafficator merely emitted a loud clunk, but didn't raise or illuminate. Raising it by hand obviously helped and the lamp was intermittent.
Having some spare time after replacing the exhaust on the wife's Vectra, I thought I'd take off some homework and make the most of the few minutes I'd got free. The trafficator is mounted to the shell between the doors inside the B pillar, to get access to its mounting bolts, three screws have to be removed from the B pillar interior trim, which will then pull just far enough out of the way to get a screwdriver in.
The photos below show the detail already, but the trafficators are 6V Lucas SF80 bearing the numbers 11 60 54046E.
Power is supplied using a single core cable (earth return is through the chassis) and the combination of the cable and space available between the B pillar and trim makes for some fun removing the unit, so after quite a bit of wiggling, a rather gummy trafficator emerged.
Once at home I took it apart as far as I could without drilling the hinge rivets out and set about faultfinding. It's so simple that the fault had to be too, and in this case it was simply that the hinge was stiff. I'm guessing it has been oiled and the oil has dried out and gone thick. After a bit of cleaning and manual actuation it now operates much more freely. The solenoid itself was actually fine - I had suspected that this would be the cause but it (correctly) had not been lubricated and so hadn't stuck.
I'll leave the photos to say the rest...
I'll refit it soon, and update this page...
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Last review was Sunday, 02 November 2008