Brake lights out- 84 240 DL wagon

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jb - 12 May 2005 00:34 GMT

My brake lights went out today (or at least the guy waving with none finger
says). Checked the bulbs, holders, and fuses. The switch under the pedal
seems to be functioning, is there a way to check it? How about relay and
stuff...I have no manuals for this blue brick................
HELP!!!!

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Mike F - 12 May 2005 13:20 GMT

> My brake lights went out today (or at least the guy waving with none finger
> says). Checked the bulbs, holders, and fuses. The switch under the pedal
> seems to be functioning, is there a way to check it? How about relay and
> stuff...I have no manuals for this blue brick................
> HELP!!!!

The switch under the pedal should have power at one wire with the brake
pedal up, then power at both wires with the pedal depressed. After
leaving the switch, power goes to the bulb failure relay, a cylinder
(probably black on your car) clipped to the lower dash frame beside the
steering column. The wire from the brake light switch goes to the
terminal marked "54", the wires to each brake light come from the
terminals marked "54L" and "54R". Often the brake light circuit inside
this relay has a bad solder joint. You can change the relay, or if
handy with a soldering iron, fix it. If you're shopping used, note that
the relay from the later cars with a 3rd brake light (1986 and newer)
will cause the bulb failure light to be on all the time the brakes are.

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Mike F.
Thornhill (near Toronto), Ont.

Replace tt with t (twice!) and remove parentheses to email me directly.
(But I check the newsgroup more often than this email address.)

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James Sweet - 14 May 2005 23:57 GMT

I've seen this happen when solder joints cracked in the bulb failure sensor.

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