legacycentral bbs

Its been a veery long time since I've been here, but my login and password were still good, believe it or not.

Unfortunately my 93 L Wagon is gone, but my MIL has a 94 L Wagon that my sister-in-law has on permanent loan. She is not hard on cars, but if something is going to break, she will be the one that it happens to. The car has been in my driveway DOA 3X now, and this one has me stumped: no brake lights. Got headlights, parking lights, turn signals, dashboard lights, etc. The dome light circuit has been dead as long as I have known, so I don't think they are related. Any ideas what would cause just the brake lights to fail, but not the parking lights?

Easy stuff first: fuse and brake switch are both good?

If you were to search my old posts, you'd find I almost never had any problems w/my '93.
IOW, I have no idea where the brake switch is. All the fuses under the hood latch are OK.

Brake switch is under the dash on the brake pedal. I've accidentally unplugged mine once while doing something under the dash.

ON the pedal? O just got out the flashlight & I didn't see anything attached from the pedal all the way up to the hinge. IIRC, there wasn't much above the hinge either. This car doesn't have the fuse box door anymore. Which fuse is the brake light? I eyeballed each one, but there is one in the center row closest to the door that has a plastic ring around it - 15 amp - that I couldn't see and wasn't coming out without more effort that I was willing to give it at the moment.

OK, so I saw the switch on top of the hinge. How the flip do you get it off?

I pulled over and snapped some pics

Dang man, You're awesome!!

Is the car an automatic? If so, the brake light switch also opens the shift-lock. If the switch is bad you'd have to push the button on the console to shift out of P. I actually replaced an entire shift-lock assembly before without realizing the brake lights also didn't work.

James614 wrote:Is the car an automatic? If so, the brake light switch also opens the shift-lock. If the switch is bad you'd have to push the button on the console to shift out of P. I actually replaced an entire shift-lock assembly before without realizing the brake lights also didn't work.

Had to press the button to get out of Park as long as I have had the "opportunity" to dig into this car (this example is NOT in the condition of the car I sold) so I wonder if its not had brake lights all this time. Supposedly a new switch is traversing the continent as I write, but I don't think I'll see it until late next week, grumble.
Is replacing it just a matter of disconnecting the electrical connection and removing the unit counterclockwise while holding the outside bolt in place? I can't tell if its more in-depth than that. The floorboard smells like feral cat, if you get my meaning.

All you gotta do is unscrew that lower nut and it pulls straight out.

That did it! Thank you all for the assistance. Brake lights, shift lock - all work now. Its tight working down there though.

Glad it was an easy fix.