Hi, my name is Deborah, and this blog is about cool stuff I do. Just recently, I participated in something just short of rocket science.
Let me rephrase that - it felt like rocket science trying to figure out how in the hay barn I was supposed to fix the turn signals on my 2003 Mazda Protege. After they broke coming north on I-75 in Ohio, I drove the streets another 3 months using arm signals, or more often nothing at all. I could never tell if people actually knew what my official signals meant, or if they just slowed down enough for me to slip in because they were befuddled as to why my arm was sticking out the window.
I researched forums (some here) and Google searched for hours, finally determining that a broken flasher relay could be the problem. Next I had to find it. My search was aided by a few diagrams, but photos would have been much easier to understand. Some people said it would be in the fuse box, that it was green; but others claimed it was white, located in the driver's foot well. I looked at both of my car's fuse boxes, tried pulling out some relays under the hood (unsuccessfully), and limbo-ed under my steering wheel a few times in my quest to find the flasher relay.
Spread over a few weeks in three separate sessions, I spent around eight hours poking around my car, online, and attempting fixes. Here are a few snapshots of the third session, start to finish, that may tell the story better and help some other hapless soul looking for their relay:
I wedged myself under the steering wheel near the gas and brake pedals to look for a mysterious rectangular white box of unknown proportions. (I ruled out green as a color because there was no green boxes to be seen under there.) After some time and little progress in that cramped position, my hair got stuck around the brake pedal. I had to choose either to laugh or to cry. It was a make or break moment built from the mounting frustration. So I let out a breathy chuckle and untangled my hair. After that the stress eased off, and I encouraged myself by acknowledging my efforts up to that point.
The relay was indeed a little ivory/white rectangular box with wires plugged into one end. It has eight connections but only six were used. It snapped onto a bracket and came off by pulling/pushing it off towards the front of the car.
This shows the dangling wires (six connections) that are normally hooked up to the relay, and the place where it sits, which is a bracket bolted to the top of the foot well. I tried 7/16", 3/8", 1/2" and something called 3/3. They were either too small or too large to fit over the bolt. I still don't know what size to use. Shortly after giving up on the bolt idea, I found the relay and muscled it off without unscrewing the bracket.
The new part, ordered from S&G Imports on 8 Mile Rd, arrived over the weekend and cost about $48. It was nearly identical to the old one.
The fantastic lighting for my little phone camera is courtesy of my brother's small dollar store flashlight that takes one AA battery. It is very handy for looking around this small, dark space above the foot pedals.
After I put the relay on and re-installed the electrical connection, I turned the key and tried my lights. No go! Close to crushed, I suddenly remembered that I had had to remove a 15 amp fuse to turn off my hazards.
They had remained constantly lit after my relay broke and turned off only when the fuse came out. I had the fuse and the little fuse remover tool sitting in my cup holder for months. I scooped them out and popped the hood.
If you ever need to change the flasher relay in your Mazda Protege, I hope this will help. For me, it was another great experience working on my car. The failures leading up to the final fix only sweetened the conclusion.
Thanks for reading!
