AMC Eagle electronic flashers

When I did my headlights I also did the turn signal bulbs… which broke my flashers.  The LED bulbs just don’t take enough current to trigger the mechanical flashers and the lights stick on.  I could have added ballast resistors to make the flashers work, but if I don’t then technically my car is more efficient.  That, and if I want to put regular bulbs back in (or someone else does) then it will still work.

Where, oh where, is the fuse block?

The thing I thought was crazy is that I saw zero pictures anywhere for how to access the turn signal flasher.  I couldn’t find it in the service manual, in the forums, or anywhere.  The Eagle has two flashers, one for the turn signals and one for the hazard lights, which is fine.

There it is! (yours may not have a janky extra fuse, this is probably for the old fog lamps)

The fuse block has two curved indents that look like they’re designed for flasher units, but only one is used.  The explanation I got and makes the most sense is that it was designed that way, but the turn signal noise was too quiet and they moved the turn signal flasher up into the dashboard to make it more audible.

Step 1, loosen those screws and pull this out

The flasher is behind the 4×4 switch to the left, and it should be easy for someone with smaller hands than me to get in and out (I did it, but the car took its pound of flesh).

There you are!

When installing electronic flashers remember you need a ground wire (I saw some solid state ones without it but I wanted a click), luckily there was a ground lug nearby that worked perfectly.  I extended the ground wire on one of the flashers so it would reach somewhere easy to install and once it was jammed back into the spring steel bracket grounding that wire was easy.  Before you do that, however, make sure your polarity is right.  I bought polarity sensitive electronic flashers (they make a polarity agnostic one but I was cheap, or maybe they only had one in stock) and the car was wired backward for them.  The mechanical flashers just heat up a bimetalic strip so they go both ways, but my new units are a little less flexible with which terminals are ‘exit only’.  The turn signal flasher was easy, jam a pocket knife in the spade connectors, swap positions, make sure to bend the tab back, and you’re golden.

purple, the universal color

The one on the fuse block was more trouble.  I decided that I would rather make a short jumper that swaps the pins than get in there and swap them.  One day I will have the seats out doing the carpet and then I will surely fix the wiring in the block, but for today this was fine.

The home page for this project is here, it has a link to the album of pictures.