Brake Lights Not Working

[IslanderOffRoad]

Tail Lights = good
Turn signals = good
Hazards = good
Reverse Lights = good

Brake Lights are the only thing I'm having problems with, and thats probably the most important one to have! Bulbs and fuses are all good, whats the next step in diagnosing this problem?

[Ristow]

power to the switch?getting through the switch?

also,the power to the brake lites runs through the turn signal switch,the switch determines which brake lite blinks,for the signal.
i simply had to clean the switch on my 74 j10 to get the brake lites working.

[tkiller13]

check and clean all the ground connections.

[Millerluck]

Do you have trailer lights wired in? PO hacked into the wires under the bumper on my GW. Has them stupid blue splicer deals. My right rear running light would not come on way back when....so I started looking around till I found that rat nest.

Just a thought.

Later

Larry Miller

[Topher]

Did you do the eyeball test or did you hook up a meter and test everything? That ole dusty trusty ohm meter is a life/time saver. He'll tell you if you have sufficient voltage, ohmage, and groundage, and in less time than you can spend looking and tugging.

Topher-just a thoughtage

[J10Joe]

i had the same problem, because of trailor light hook ups. clean that up, and clean gorunds. good wires and bad ground will give you many headaches. GET GOOD GROUNDS. sorry to shout.

[Justin Kerns]

power to the switch?getting through the switch?

x2. I just fixed mine after a lengthy struggle. If your turn signals work you most likely don't have power to the brake switch. Check that first.

Mine was dead and a wire was stripped and shorting between the switch & the fuseblock. Cleaned it up, replaced the fuse (always a good thing to check) and I was good.

Thanks to Ristow for the tip that helped me find the obvious!

[IslanderOffRoad]

I did fuses yesterday, thats how I got the hazards working again.

The switch you guys are referring to is the one on the brake pedal support bracket right?

It does have trailer braking hooked up.... I'll have to check that out.

[docb69]

Cruise Control Module

I ran into a fun problem with my brake lights. The switch had no power because I had disconected the cruise control unit and it was the relay for the brakes. It took forever to figure it out. Solution was replace the relay in the fuseblock and bypass the connections under the dash.

[IslanderOffRoad]

Seeing as the turn signal/hazards work, I'm assuming its a bad brake switch. I pulled it today, tried activating it by hand hoping it just needed adjustment, no such luck

where can i pick one of these up? vatozone doesnt have it listed as available

[Ristow]

i'll have a used one you can have.
but,my signals worked too,with no brake lights,and it was the turn signal switch,which just needed a good dunk in the parts washer to get the old dielectric grease and dirt out of it.
you need to check the switch with a multimeter,or,make a jumper wire,plug it into the plug going to the brake switch,and see if your brake lights are on.

[IslanderOffRoad]

ok, got the new brake light switch.. no dice, although now my dash light comes on for the e-brake!

i'm moving to the turn signal flasher next. i tried to pull it, but it didn't seem to want to come out. was it relatively easy to remove for you guys? is there a trick I'm missing?

[J10Joe]

should pull straight out. Do your hazards work?

[IslanderOffRoad]

yes they do

[J10Joe]

yes they do

try the flasher then, but my $$ is still on a bad ground wire back there.