Side marker "lenses", what's the deal?

[68Stepper]

Register your your truck as an antique and put antique tags on it and never have to get it inspected again.

Problem solved!

[dmjlambert]

That is interesting, welcome to the forum, and congratulations on the new truck.

I just finished connecting my new side markers in the back of the truck, and they are now working. I still need to connect the front markers. I will do some experimenting with connecting as you mention, and see if they will behave like that on my 1969 truck.

I have bad headlight switch on the dash and bad turn signal switch in the steering column, so those need to be fixed first, and I have the parts on order. Almost every circuit I run across in this truck is broken, so I'm glad stuff for the truck is relatively cheap to buy. I am kind of amazed when I go to the auto parts store for stuff like fuel pumps, water pumps, brake cylinders, and other fairly major parts like that, and the guy at the register says something like "that'll be $19." It's funny the parts are dozens or hundreds of dollars for my newer cars.

It is time consuming to get it inspection ready. I guess I should have ordered the whole caboodle of switches, bulbs, relays and horns for my truck. I'm hoping the 8-track player works when I get around to testing that. My truck is pretty decrepit, but I sure like it. I hope you enjoy yours.

[dmjlambert]

Originally Posted by 68Stepper

Register your your truck as an antique and put antique tags on it and never have to get it inspected again.

Problem solved!

I am fixing mine up to be a daily driver, so the registration will be classic or regular, and inspection will be required.

[dmjlambert]

Originally Posted by dudehitt

First post btw. Just got my 72 C10 Saturday.

It's really easy to make side markers blink even if they aren't supposed to as long as they aren't LED bulbs. Just tap into the turn signal positive wire use that to replace the negative wire of the side marker. If the headlights are on and the turn signals are off that wire will be grounded so the side markers work. When the headlights are on and the turn signal comes on you will get positive voltage on both sides of the bulb so it will go dark. When the headlights are off the positive voltage from the turn signal will go to the normally negative side of the side markers and light them up.

OK dudehitt, that is great info. Actually, I love it. I would imagine if you had non-polarity LED bulbs it would work, too. I have seen non-polarity 194 LED bulbs online, but I am sticking with plain incandescent 194 light bulbs for mine, so that is what I tested. Here is what I came up with based on your explanation, I am using the combo scheme in this video:

https://youtu.be/BZ6gb4F1ByA

[dudehitt]

Perfect! I did it on my scion xB. The fronts worked exactly like that. The rears have a sealed led sidemarker unit so they will only blink if the headlights are on.

[dmjlambert]

To finish it off, I soldered together some pigtail T-adapters, so I can just plug into the factory wiring harness at the front turn signal connectors.

[toolboxchev]

Bringing this back up as I will be doing this tomorrow! Ha, I'm getting gold, ehr old I should say.