Left Blinker, turns off Cruise Control or Causes truck to shift...suggestions?

[Jerome Casi]

Title says it all, truck just started doing this. If truck is in overdrive, and i turn on left turn signal, truck temporarily goes out of overdrive, for a couple seconds then back into overdrive.
If Cruise is on, then it kicks cruise off. Right turn signal works fine. I have no idea where to start with this...please help!

97 f350, 7.3 turbo diesel.

 

[Skandocious]

Check your left tail light bulb

 

[lenny1carl]

Is this truck part of the Cruise Control recall mess????

 

[radialarm]

Could also be the clock spring under the steering wheel!!!

 

[Jerome Casi]

Could also be the clock spring under the steering wheel!!!

What is the clock Spring? Havent heard of that.

Bulb is good, all lights work...grrrr

 

[Skandocious]

The clock spring is what allows the buttons on the steering wheel (horn + cruise control) to transfer electricity to the rest of the truck while still allowing the steering wheel to spin in circles. I don't reckon that you're problem is in the clock spring if your horn and cruise control still work, but I may be wrong on that...

The cruise control circuit is wired into the same circuit as your tail lights so if there is a bad component in one or the other, it can start causing strange symptoms. This happens a lot in these trucks... I took my fuse out for the dome light when I was working on the interior-- forgot to put it back in and when I took it for a drive the transmission went into limp mode Dome light? Transmission? Totally unrelated and yet on the same circuit...

Generally if there is a short in the bulb somehow it can cause the problem you're describing... If you're sure that the bulb is perfect then it's somewhere in the wiring... You might be able to find some answers here:
http://www.fordtruckfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2355


As far as the clockspring is concerned... I did notice that Ryan (for some reason) replaced his clockspring a while after making the above thread...
http://www.fordtruckfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7399

Perhaps he was replacing it because of the electrical gremlin? Ryan can you offer some answers here?

 

[O'Rattlecan]

Sure can!

I had transmission shifting issues, loss of cruise (after the same left blinker symptoms) and I had to replace the clockspring. It's a little over a hundred bucks and not that hard to replace as long as you have a steering wheel puller tool!

Ryan

 

[Skandocious]

So Ryan, the clockspring fixed the intermittent cruise control/blinker problem?

 

[O'Rattlecan]

It sure did! It was intermittant. Pretty soon he will find that the cruise fails altogether, and that's when I had to replace the clockspring. Hopefully the write-up will help with installation.

Ryan

 

[Skandocious]

Hmm... Strange. I had the problem for a long time then it would go away, and come back. Come and go. Then suddenly-- it stopped and never came back. Hasn't done it in probably a year...

 

[O'Rattlecan]

Electrical problems torque me off. They act different in different seasons of the year, and different warm-up cycles of the pickup. They're hard to peg down. If that's what yours was doing, I'd say that your clockspring is at least partially not-okay.

And I'm remembering, part of the clockspring system is the horn. My horn failed with the clockspring. I had to replace it in a hurry due to a safety inspection about a week away.

Ryan

 

[1985 Ford F-150]

Thats the reason I buy simple stuff thats old.

 

[fatherdoug]

Replacing the multifunction switch on a taurus solved the exact same problem that Jerome is describing. (Left turn signal would cancel cruise control, but only intermittently.)

 

[Jerome Casi]

Replacing the multifunction switch on a taurus solved the exact same problem that Jerome is describing. (Left turn signal would cancel cruise control, but only intermittently.)

Where is the multifunction switch or where is that? I can fix alot of stuff, I just dont know all the terminology.

As for the clock spring, any way to test if its the culprit?

My signal relay for the left was acting funny one day, it would flash the blinker once then stop. It did it for about a half a day, then started working fine. That was a couple weeks ago, and now this..grrrrrr

Appreciate all the help!

 

[radialarm]

Where is the multifunction switch or where is that? I can fix alot of stuff, I just dont know all the terminology.

As for the clock spring, any way to test if its the culprit?

My signal relay for the left was acting funny one day, it would flash the blinker once then stop. It did it for about a half a day, then started working fine. That was a couple weeks ago, and now this..grrrrrr

Appreciate all the help!

The multifunction switch is the turn signal, wiper, flasher, high beam switch on the steering column!!!

 

[fatherdoug]

What he said!

 

[Skandocious]

Come to think of it... My problem went away right around the time that I replaced my blinker module... Hmmmm... Somethin' to think about

 

[madhader]

Don't mean to hijack your thread, but does anyone know if this could be the cause for my temp gauge pulsating in time with my left turn signal???

 

[O'Rattlecan]

I've never seen anything like that. That sounds more like a surging or grounding issue.

Ryan

 

[Skandocious]

Yeah that sounds like an unrelated issue. Do you have a weak electrical system of possible a bad ground somewhere?