M715 project underway 305 chevy with 200-4R auto

The solid state flashers have no patience for a short or any kind. If there is a bad wire to ground anywhere in the system, they will burn up and die.

I tried taking all that epoxy out. I was going to solder wires to the plug and hide a generic parts store flasher inside. It got old fast. Long story short, I just wired in one of those flashers and mounted it on the firewall inside the cab. I really wanted to get the solid state but couldn't justify the cost.

I got the epoxy out pretty quick but quickly realized there isn't enough room to mount a mechanical relay inside it.

I have an old Willys truck in my yard. It has a base mounted on the steering column for an electro-mechanical relay. The relay in it is six volt so I couldn't try it this afternoon. I will stop at NAPA tomorrow on my way home from work and pick up a few parts to experiment with.

I can't justify a $50 flasher. Especially if they burn out so easily.

I'm actually thinking I want the extra loud relay so I can hear the blinker anyway.

How'd you get it out? I went with hammer/chisel/ then drill/hammer/chisel/fire. I could only get it to chip off in little bits so I put it on the shelf for later (aka throw it out a couple years from now.)

I heated the top layer with a torch and scraped it off with a medium size screw driver. The top layer would burn as I scraped it. Then I clamped it in a vice and chipped it out with the same screw driver. It came out in pretty big chunks at first. I'd say I had maybe 10-15 minutes into it total.

There isn't much inside it. A circuit board maybe an inch and a half square with wires to the plug. That board is sticky taped to the base. It has a couple resistors what looks like some small transistors and some small capacitors maybe. And what looks like a big transistor bolted the the case which is the heat sync. The odd thing is the round part that has the sticker on it is actually bolted to the transistor and is removable. I may try dissecting that later.

Does your light on your lever work without the solid state flasher?

I removed the base that was screwed to the heat sync and plugged it back in to the harness. I wire nutted two wires together. I can now manually flash my signals by moving the lever on and off but the lever light doesn't work. With or without the ground wire connected.

Yeah, everything works with the $6 unit the same as it did with the stock set-up.

Flasher issue resolved by using a NAPA electro-mechanical flasher. It wasn't $6.00 it was more but I bought it anyway. I still don't have parking lights but I'm not really sure I ever did anymore. I don't remember if I had them last year and I never really use them anyway so I'm not worrying about that for now.


My newest problem is throwing my belt.

I have a serpentine belt setup on my 6.2 and I have shredded/thrown 3 belts in the last 300 miles.

I've checked every pulley for any play/wobble but don't see any. I tried a new idler pulley. I've check the harmonic balancer. Best I can guess I have something out of alignment.

So I've got to learn how to align a serpentine belt system on a 6.2. Anyone here know where to start?

Good news on the flasher Paul.

I have a v-belt setup on mine, so no insight on serpentine alignment, sorry.

put a straight edge on them. Can you 'read' the sheeves and see where the missalignment is.

I tried using a straight edge but am having a difficult time getting it to tell me much.

After fiddling with it for a few minutes I decided to just eyeball it That's when I spotted a bracket on the power steering pump that looked to be installed wrong. I looked at the pulley on the power steering pump and tried to eyeball it to the crank. I think my power steering pulley was at a slight angle because the bracket may have been pushing the top of the pump out a little.

I re-installed the bracket and the pump pulley now looks parallel to the crank. I haven't been for a drive yet but am optimistic.

I spent some time in the garage tonight and wired in a high idle switch and a compressor switch. I am still planning on having on board air and am using a Harrison AC pump for the air pump. I am still contemplating how to oil the pump but am pretty sure I will get it sorted out sometime. I may burn one or two pumps out but I'm sure I'll eventually have a usable air setup. I'm probably going to start with a standard in line tool oiler and see how that works out.

I have also started building my on board welder. I bought a cs144 GM alternator from a salvage yard and removed the internal voltage regulator and diode pack. I bought an external diode pack and will be wiring that to a control box on my fender. I'll post up pictures when I have something to look at. The cs144 is rated at 124 amps compared to the 100 amp alternator that came stock on my engine. With a high output stator it can put out over 200 amps. I'm probably not going to get that just yet. My old CJ was welding just fine with a 100 amp alternator.