Brake Light Switches

[lprowler]

I'm Having trouble activating my brake lights when I step on the brake pedal. Both the old switches and the new ones I just installed are having the same problems. They both will only activate the brake lights when I apply a great amount of pedal pressure, could I have a problem with improper bleeding? I really have to stand on the brake pedal to get them to come on.
Help.
Len

[Iciclehead]

This is not a new problem, I believe it was Walter Fricke who sliced one in half that had exhibited this behaviour (one of mine acutally) and found that at worst, there was a tiny bit of grime on the internal contacts, no way to fix it, not certain what causes it.

There was a fellow who sold a relay based system called BLSAS or something of that ilk that solved the problem, which is what I have on my car. It could be easily rigged or you could go to the fully mechanical brake light activation of earlier cars. .

Do some searching on this forum, this is not an uncommon problem and near as I can tell it is a combination of poor quality control on the switches and that they conduct full brake light current.

Dennis

[Smoove1010]

The first thing I needed to do on my 87 when I acquired it was to replace both brake light switches. They were readily available at local auto parts stores. Before installing, I put a drop of brake fluid into the sensor holes to reduce the likelihood of air bubbles being stuck in there and preventing them from working. Mine have worked fine since I put them in.
As Iciclehead said - do a forum search on brake light switch and you'll see a number of clever home-grown solutions that use a mechanical switch.
Good luck,
GK