no brake lights on my 69 FJ

[bsupak]

Here was the situation: I had parking lights and turn signal, the brake switch was working and I have voltage to the plug at the firewall. I ruled out a bad ground because the other lights worked.

So......

after cutting out the trailer plug (PO rats nest) and putting bullet plugs on all the rear lights I decided to replace the fuses. when I replaced the top one (20A for lights) I no longer had any lights! After further inspection the fuse holder prongs were pretty corroded, so I unscrewed the hot wires and cleans the prongs, then I ran a rat-tail file through them. Wired it back up and loaded the fuses and....


Lo and behold I had BRAKE LIGHTS!!!!!!

So if you every have brake light issues, check the fuse holder for corrosion. The only made up explanation I have is that the brakes need more amperage and the corrosion was allowing enough to do most lights but not enough to power the brighter brake lights.

I hope this saves someone 2 and a half days of troubleshooting.

Bryan

 

[RDD40]

Ahahahah. How fitting for my first post. I'm not laughing at you; I'm laughing with you. Just this weekend I lost my brake lights, and after two days of digging through wiring diagrams, checking voltages, ripping out (and destroying in the process) the brake light switch, digging through the flasher and turn signal switch, I found the EXACT same problem you did. If only you had had the problem a couple days earlier!

I checked the fuse, and it was good (it was the first thing I looked at), but didn't notice the corrosion on the fuse prongs. Eventually, after tearing into everything and going crazy, I noticed the corrosion, cleaned up the terminals, and *pow*, I had brake lights, hazards, and turn signals. Oh, that's right, in my diagnosis of the brake lisghts, my turn signals stopped working too. Frustrating. So much over such a simple thing! How weird we had the issue on the same weekend.

 

[jimhendrixx]

Dude,
this might be my problem. I am going to do this tonight, thanks.

 

[caladin]

i swear...

I was having all kinds of issue with my lights, spent forever chasing them...and I read to take out all my fuzes, clean all the corrosion off all the prongs and to replace all my fuses (I did 1 at a time, but you get the idea)

and right there, 99% of my electrical issues went away.

when I honk the horn the blinkers flicker... but other than that I'm happy

I highly suggest it to you.

Cal-