mysterious interior light/brake light outage

[Cruiserhead05]

For some unknown reason my interior light as well as my brake lights(when the reg. light are on, they work fine as brake lights) have stopped working. one day everything was fine the next nothing. i was out warming the 40 up and when i shut the front door i noticed they all came on some how but then again they shut off. what could it be. i cant drive at night now. got pulled over once already. thanks

 

[1Fine40]

You did check the fuses right?? With a meter....looks can be deceiving!

 

[Archengine]

interior light or lights? and all your parking lights or just the brakes?

 

[Cruiserhead05]

yes, the fuses are fine. the interior gauges lights and the underdash light are out. also its just the parking lights when the rest of the lights are on that are out.the brake lights do work. and somehow they are connected

 

[Archengine]

Sounds about right. I just had the same problem, and finally figured it out. Check out CCOT for everyone elses opinion, the thread is big, and only a few days old. My problem, with the same symptoms as you describe, was the light swith was bad. The internal connections have corroded, maybe missing a spring or something. Play with your light switch, it should do the trick, and would explain why your door slamming kicked them back on. Might even be the connections into the harness that are bad, an easy fix. If you have to take yours apart, be very careful and take your time. Keep an eye on the springs locations and the sliding connectors. I was lucky enough to have a spare to rebuild incase I messed up. Took a little while, but not all day. It's more of a mechanical device than electrical, but if you lose a part, good luck finding another. You'll need 400 grit sandpaper, a rifler file, electical cleaner, a few rags, a flat head and a lot of patience. Best of luck.

 

[Klunky Chris]

this is tooooooo simple, but I'll post it anyway because it tricked me for a month!

I kept checking the fuses and they were fine! (ohm-meter across the fuse) then by accident I figured out that the mating surface between the fuse and the fuse holder was corroded and not making contact. I literally spun the fuse and moved it back and forth a couple times and my brake lights came back!!!
I need to hit them with fine sandpaper to really clean them up.

Check these connections before you get too far into it!

I was in the process of dropping the brake switch (which is a royal PITA BTW...) when I luckily found this!

hope yours is this simple!