Originally Posted by Dave9
The easiest way to find a short without test equipment is to
buy test equipment get a wiring diagram. That's like asking what's the easiest way to ride a bike without a bike.
I mean sure, you can look for broken wires, black scorch marks, molten areas, sparks, smoke, fire, and little ninjas with wire cutting swords, but otherwise you are going to have to check on whether the emergency flasher does use the same wire ( pull the bulb housing and see if there's more than one bulb element or wire involved), and if it does you could always run a new wire. If it doesn't use a different wire then yes it is probably your signal lever which may or may not lend itself to being opened, inspected, and possibly cleaned out. Depends on how much trouble that is, whether to take it out to check it and possibly clean it, rather than buy a new one ahead of time.
If you have any kind of bulb out alert system in the vehicle, that monitors the flashers, you might also use your unavailable test equipment to check that too.
A multimeter is well worth owning, even if it's a low end $10 special.
Fixed it for you. Any time you have an electrical problem, your very first step should always be to get a wiring diagram. How are you going to trace the wires from one end to the other if you don't know where they go and what they connect to? How do you know which wires should have voltage if you don't even know how the circuit works? A wiring diagram lays it all out and shows you exactly how the circuit works, where the wires go, the color of every wire, any connectors and splices they go through, including which pin in the connector they're connected to, the location of the connectors and splices, and some even show the route/location of the whole wiring harness.
Trying to solve electrical problems without a wiring diagram is like trying to fix it while blindfolded.