Archived No Brake Lights

[The patriot]

Took the truck to inspection this morning. The 98.

No brake lights. I have 48 hours to fix this... . something always screws my vacation up.

I looked at the obvoius things before posting here. Fuses, (it seems that no fuses were in circuit for the brake lights ) the switch under the dash, checked connections etc.

I cant figger out why they arent working.

I have parking lights, head lights, just no brake lights.

The turn signals work too.

The trailer brake controller usually lights up LED,s when I'm braking, but not now.

I'm going to disconnect the trailer brake controller now and see what happens. The connector is in a real B!$^H of a spot or I would have just done it at the inspection station.

Eric

 

[Joe G.]

Eric,



You may need a new brake light switch. But maybe the "self adjusting" thing has gone too far. The button seems to have a series of notches or stops. Try pulling up on the brake pedal and see if you can pull the button on the switch out another notch. If you recently had a very hard stop you may have pushed the button past where it will work ok.

 

[The patriot]

Thanks Joe. I found the problem... it's the nut behind the wheel. :-laf

I didnt think of looking in the big fuse box under the hood.

I pulled the door off the one built into the dashboard and didnt see a fuse for the brake lights. Duh.....

Well, it's back to the insp. station for me.

I'm lucky I didnt get a ticket before now. It was due for inspection last year.

Last night while my wife and I were out driving, a rock got kicked up and put a 7" long crack in the window, high on the passenger side. This brought up the subject of inspection.



As a side note, my 1st gen has a few things wrong with it that I would have thought would have definetly failed it... however they failed it for the drivers window not working. Everything else was OK.

Go figger.....

Thanks for the fast reply.

Eric

 

[The patriot]

Oh BTW

If anyone else reads this, dont pull the petal too hard. The shop manual says you can damage the switch.

Eric