Indicator dash light not working - one side only

1986 Ninety. Just redid all the lights as they were a mess. Indicators working fine, but all of a sudden the dash turn light has stopped working when turning right - the indicators themselves work fine, and everything works as it should when turning left. So can't quite figure out what it should be. Bulb's obviously fine, relay ticks as it should. Any ideas?

Apparently it doesn't like LED bulbs in it - have replaced it with a normal one and all working fine again. Trying to figure out whether that indicates some sort of earthing fault since an LED bulb will only light when the current is going one direction, whereas a normal bulb will light up either way.

LEDs need to have resistors built in (or added inline) for them to work properly I believe

Edit: for indicators in your case or for all lamps in a canbus vehicle

Yea didn't realise that was for the telltale as well as the indicator bulbs themselves though Live and learn eh? Thankfully all the others seem to work once you've figured out which polarity the socket is, so not wasted.

Have you got it sorted? I had the same problem so I took the dash out to test the tell tail which worked fine. Turned out to just be the connector wasn't in properly!

discojamz said:

Have you got it sorted? I had the same problem so I took the dash out to test the tell tail which worked fine. Turned out to just be the connector wasn't in properly!

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Swapping the LED bulb for a normal one worked - only thing I could really think of was that the LED bulb only works one way and that the indicator telltale is (in my case) earthing wrong meaning it tries to send current the other way when turning right. No doubt completely wrong!

You are right LED bulbs only work one way, connected up the wrong way round they will not light up.
Nothing landy but just a little recollection
When I working in the Chemical industry, we changed all our control panel alarm lights to LED and we had a box of spare bulbs to change if one failed, some of the guys would put a new bulb in and try it and if it did not light up they binned it thinking it was a dud that had been put back in the box and kept on until they by chance fitted one the right way round. At the start of my shift I used to dig them out of the bin and try them and usually found one or two good ones in the the duds. (It was a safety routine to check all your alarm lamps at the start of every shift) they were all educated about this when maintenance dept started to complain about the number of bulbs we were going through. They also complained about us calling them bulbs, lamps, lamps, lamps they call them lamps they would say.

Scooby22 said:

You are right LED bulbs only work one way, connected up the wrong way round they will not light up.

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What I found interesting (thankfully I did know they only work one way or I'd have been really scratching my head over the rest of the dash!) was that the same tell-tale bulb works fine for indicating left, it just wouldn't do right! I don't see why it should have made a difference, surely it's just one 12v+ and one earth to the bulb! Anyway. Whatever it is, it works fine with a normal incandescent so it'll have to be that for now!