I was advised via text that when leaving a local meet earlier, my brake lights and indicators were working,... but no side lights. So just gone back out to check, my side lights are working normally but,... the brake lights will only work if the side lights are switched on!!?, can any of you electrical boffins shed some light on this mystery?.
I'd start by checking the earth connection on the rear light clusters. A dodgy earth can have some odd effects, like brake lights that flash with the indicators.
Thanks, ill check tomorrow but i have earthed and double earthed everything around the rear lights etc, hey ho
It's the answer to suggest missing earths as that's the most likely fault. but usually a missing earth means that lights only come on (usually not at full intensity) when another circuit is off, the bulbs in the other circuit end up in series, and the earth is provided by e.g. the front indicator bulbs..these will come on dimly with th brake lights, and so on.. In this case if the lights are at full intensity and both filaments in the bulb are coming on, the problem is more likely at the 12 volt end of things under the dash where the brake circuit may be being fed from the wrong place..
I'll be checking earths today. As far as i know the brake light feed is from the brake light pressure switches. When i fitted new brake light switches one of the live feeds had been disconnected, i reconnected this. Thinking about it was probably disconnected because i think the brake light positive terminals may be linked together. Hope this makes sense. Thanks.
So you Yes, the positive feed you reconnected may have been the cause of this problem.. I am thinking the mistake is upstream of the brake light switches, in the feed to the switches.
I'll try disconnecting it as it was prior to fitting new pressure switches. Or would it be better to remove the wire that connects the brake lights feeds together?. I would think that's why each brake light has it's own fuse .... maybe.
Seems ok now, cleaned up all the relevant spade connections etc but i think twiddling all the fuses probably was the fix. Have to say the fuse box design does not fill me with confidence.
