97 Camry Right Blinker Delay

[kevlo86]

So a few days ago the right blinker (front & rear) started to act up on my 97 Camry.

Sometimes when the right blinker is activated, the blinker sound is twice as fast, and the blinker indicator on the dash does not light up and neither the front or rear blinkers light up on the right side either. However, if I wait 10 to 20 seconds everything operates normally. Also if I cancel the right blinker without waiting for the problem to fix itself and reactivate the signal right away, it works properly.

So it's a bit annoying having to sometimes signal, cancel and signal again just to get my right signal on for other motorists.

I've read around a little bit, and it seems a bulb that is about to go would not act this way as it sometimes works and sometimes does not. So perhaps a wiring or connection problem of some sort?

Thank You!
Kevin

[bolink654]

Ya know I once had a 1990 Nissan Stanza (my first car) that did pretty much exactly what your describing. I couldn't find any answer that was 100% sure. I decided to try changing the blinker relay. And that's what it was. Your mileage may vary, though.

[kevlo86]

Thank you for the reply, I am thinking an inexpensive way to find out if it is indeed the relay would be to just pull one off of a Camry that is waiting to be scrapped.

So I found the relay, at least I think I did. It's a black rectangle plugged into a beige plastic casing with wires running to the casing. The relay is labeled as "Omron 81980 AA020".

So would a relay off of say a 3rd generation Camry work as well? Would a relay perhaps off of a 1998 Avalon work as well? Is it pretty well located in the same place as it is on my 97 (left side under the kickpanel)?

Would it be advisable to simply take the relay off of a "Pick a Part" Camry in a scrap yard? Or would it wiser to buy the relay new (for more $)?

My Camry has about 197 000km on it if that helps or if anyone is wondering.

[bolink654]

I don't know. I have never looked at, found, or tried to replace the relay on my Camry. Hopefully someone else here can help you. On my Stanza it was black and mostly square. Was it on the drivers side, in the dash, above the pedals/under the steering wheel?

As I recall though, the relay is a very cheap part. And there is only a handful of them used on billions of vehicles. I wanna say Oreilly auto only had like 10 different kinds, and they were all $4-$7? Something like that.

I do know how they work though.. well I think I do. It has to do with temperature and amps and such. For example if you take a small pickup truck and the blinkers are working normally. So when you flip the blinker switch, the light comes on, and stays on... and something in the relay heats up, from the juice running through it.
And after so much, the relay shuts off, to cool down. Then it will come back on. Now if you hook a trailer up to that (and you've prolly seen this before) often they will blink very fast. Because the added amps of the trailer lights, is heating the relay up faster. In those cases you buy a heavy duty relay and it will be fine.

And that's why on my Nissan I decided to go with a new relay. It was only blinking fast sometimes - and all the bulbs worked fine. So I decided something in the relay was wrong.

[kevlo86]

So I decided to pick up a new flasher and install it, but the problem still persists. Except with this new flasher the speed of the clicking does not change when the signal light is not actually blinking. As in there is no audible difference between working and not working. So I just put the original one back in, at least I can hear right away when it's not working.

So maybe one of my signal bulbs is about to go? Has a loose connection? Any ideas?

Thanks!
Kevin

[dc_98_cam]

I think I would try new bulbs .... front and rear on the right turn/hazard.
.... Could be that something 'marginal' is going on.
... Worth a try.

Sometimes dirt, oil, moisture get into the bulb sockets.
I would recommend getting a spray can of 'plastic-safe' electrical contact cleaner ... fry's or RS ... and apply to sockets before you insert the new bulbs.

[Genee]

I had the same problem. I replaced my front and rear bulbs, and that worked fine