Turn signal wierdness
 

Had a front turn signal light bulb go out so I replaced it. Now the light flashes twice as fast (like it would if the bulb were out) but it is not. Weird part is that when I activate the emergency flasher it works at the correct speed.

83 380 SL .

What gives?

J. Boggs
thanks.

Sounds to me like the bulb you got wasn't the correct one. Same wattage, brand, etc? Go to your Mercedes dealer to get the EXACT OEM bulb. They are extremely sensitive.

Good luck.

Could also be that the contacts and/or socket are dirty or corroded. Had the same thing with the rear indicator on the 280, flashed fast as if burned out, but was working. Careful cleaning of the contacts and socket cured the problem.

Rapid flashing turn signal...
 

Hi there,
What can happen that will cause your problem is that the new bulb didn't make contact with the shell of the socket, which goes to ground. So the bulb will light through the parking light half, which, if the parking lights are on, has +12V on it. This makes the flasher "think" that the bulb is blown, and it flashes at double speed if the lights are on. If this is your problem, you will see that the front bulb is lit when the rear bulb is off, and vice-versa. The solution is to clean the socket and /or repair the ground circuit. I ended up replacing all the sockets in my '74 280C because they wouldn't make good contact. I epoxied new sockets in the old plastic housing, and then soldered the wires to the original socket. This fix worked very nicely. One trick that all the new cars use nowadays is to fill the sockets with silicon grease before inserting the bulb. This keeps the sockets from corroding and prevents water from contacting the metal, should it leak into the housing.

Richard Wooldridge