so its s 93' impreza, 1.8l fwd auto.. nothing fancy.. all stock and factory, all numbers match, nothing has been changed or replaced besides normal maintenance stuff. 183k

 

now for the mystery..

 

when cruising down the freeway, if you turn on the blinker, either way.. it will kick the torque converter in and out of lockup in sync with the blinker flashing..

 

any ideas?

What kind of blinker fluid are you using?

What kind of blinker fluid are you using?

 

i dunno but it must be really thick if its doin what its doin...

Use hand signals instead?

 

Kidding aside, it's got to be A.) the voltage drop that the extra load of the turn signals causes B.) a high resistance ground. C.) a short or leakage in the wiring harness between the turn signal wiring and the TCU or an engine sensor.

 

Can you cause a similar effect by "blinking" any other electrical loads on and off? (i.e. if you turned the headlights or rear defroster on and off repeatedly would the same thing happen?)

 

You're going to need a voltmeter, a wiring diagram and some logic to figure this one out! You could start by cleaning and resecuring grounds...

 

Nathan

okay, let's diagnose this........would you please give us more information - which blinker causes it LMAO

 

charging system, freaky alternator, battery, or connections?

a slightly wonky output is screwing with that solenoid for some reason?

 

alternate options:

quit using your blinker.

keep it: "hey baby, check out what my car can do!":grin:

ok, well it doesn't seem to matter if the headlights are on or off.. cycling headlights, ac, power windows, locks, etc. has no effect on the lockup.

 

its literally only when the blinkers are used that it does it..

 

its not a major issue cause the torque converter only goes into lockup when the cars on the freeway.. so it has no effect when its in town driving around..

 

its just a funny issue that i wanted to see if anyone could figure out

 

i guess i could rewire the TC solenoid and put it on a switch in my console.. i imagine that would fix it...

When did this start? Does it do it with the hazard lights also?

When did this start? Does it do it with the hazard lights also?

 

i just got the car a month or so ago.. never noticed it till recently.. but then again i don't drive down the freeway very often either.. so its prolly been doing it a long long time..

 

it does it with the flashers too.. its like the tc solenoid is run into the blinker system.. which would make absolutely no sense..

I suspect there is a grounding problem causing the trouble. You could try running a temporary ground jumper from the battery to a good ground spot under the dash to see if that clears the trouble. If that doesn't work then try the rear lighting area.

Wow, that's a good man!

 

You got a spare TCU around? I would try swapping it out. I have found that TCU do fail more often than people think. I got 6 legacy TCU's in my possession, and only 2 work and I know my trans is fine. So I would just try swapping out the TCU. I am going to write a post about this once I get a chance to consolidate all my research on this topic.

 

Also just remove the TCU from the bracket it's attached to and let it hang making sure nothing is touching the actual TCU case. Something might be grounding itself to the case of the TCU, causing weird things to happen in the TCU itself.