Hazard light Hazards..

[Hector2021]

Only having owned my car since September last year i have to admit to not really having 100% experience of the working nature of all of the car. Im sure that when i viewed it, and maybe a couple of times since buying it i have pressed the Hazard light switch with no negative results, but just recently i was testing all electrics in prep for its upcoming MOT.
The hazard lights now only seemed to work intermittently. Doing as all forum users should i looked on here for advice. A lot of similar previous advice pointed to the switch itself at fault, or the flasher unit. Both likely to be pricey replacements if the true root of the problem. However, during my search i also found a comment from a user back in 2017:

Hello all
Thanks for all your help
Finally found problem after lots of time and expense , which was not needed.
Bought switch and relay, didn't resolve problem
Problem was found under top cover on dashboard.
Three big connectors wrapped in foam.
The middle one being the hazards loom.
Waggling the wires the hazards all started working as normal intermittently .
After fiddling undoing connector blocks for a while they now appear to stay on.
Lets hope its OK for MOT.
Had another issue with fans not tripping in, again down to loose connector.
An absolute pig to find these.
Worth checking if you have these issues before you rush out to but new switches.
My original one was ok until I stripped it down waste of cash!
You learn something every day
Regards
Steve

Obviously this was the easiest initial route to try and to my delight, it was also the exact same issue. Slide back the square foam padding from the connectors and fiddle with the middle yellow/clear multi-cable connector. Took a while to stabilise all connections in the block but this was the culprit!

What i have now noticed though is that when operating, the hazards lights do not flash the turn indicator tell tale light in the dash cluster. The light in the hazard switch does flash in sync however. Is this normal?

[Fredjohn]

Yes that is normal. The tell tale light for the hazards is in the switch, not the indicator tell tales.

[Tuga2112]

what i understand is that your suggesting that the wires themselfs are damaged??? that seems very unlikely, but if what you are suggesting is that after 30 years of trepidation from running the connections can become loose and need re-fitting i find that a lot more likely.

i have been faffinf about with the bugger's electrical system everytime something goes wrong, and i never found a wire to be internally broken. but i keep checking for that because its a surprisingly easy check in most circunstances that will rule out a cheap (and often overlooked) root cause

[Hector2021]

Yes that is normal. The tell tale light for the hazards is in the switch, not the indicator tell tales.

Thanks for the confirmation. Having just had a look at the wiring drawing it does look as if the hazard switch when engaged, actually shorts out the panel tell tale lamp to provide the positive feed to the left and right side indicators

what i understand is that your suggesting that the wires themselfs are damaged??? that seems very unlikely, but if what you are suggesting is that after 30 years of trepidation from running the connections can become loose and need re-fitting i find that a lot more likely.

i have been faffinf about with the bugger's electrical system everytime something goes wrong, and i never found a wire to be internally broken. but i keep checking for that because its a surprisingly easy check in most circunstances that will rule out a cheap (and often overlooked) root cause

I wasn't suggesting that any internal wires had internal continuity issues, but of course that could always have been possible (if unlikely) The post i found from 2017 highlighted this particular connector block to be his issue, and it also seemed to be mine.
The actual problem appeared to be poor continuity between the internal male/female crimp connectors in the terminal block. Establishing which exact one(s) was the challenge. Its to be expected i suppose that where two cables meet via a mechanical connection, this is a potential future high resistance spot waiting to happen following 27 years of oxygen and moisture doing their chemical stuff. I think my lesson here is to look at this as a cause for any future electrical gremlins before assuming the expensive equipment replacement route.

[Tuga2112]

The actual problem appeared to be poor continuity between the internal male/female crimp connectors in the terminal block. Establishing which exact one(s) was the challenge. Its to be expected i suppose that where two cables meet via a mechanical connection, this is a potential future high resistance spot waiting to happen following 27 years of oxygen and moisture doing their chemical stuff. I think my lesson here is to look at this as a cause for any future electrical gremlins before assuming the expensive equipment replacement route.

oh yes, crimped connections are always a weak point, plenty of times i had to re-crimp stuff.
usually because the gauge of wires i use is a lot thinner than the gauge the cripmps i use are designed for.