HELP, no brake lights!!

93XJ, bla bla bla....

Noticed i had no brake lights the other night. i checked every fuse i could find on the whole dam thing. all checked out fine. ok, so i bought a new brake switch (#56006981 dealer only $17.00). threw that in.............still no lights. i checked the lights themselfs, they work fine.......Is there a relay perhaps that i may have overlooked? please help...want to get out in the woods/rocks soon

Have you checked for power at your brake lights while someone pushes the pedal down?

If you don't have power there then I'd check for power at the fuse panel. Also, when your remove the fuse take a look at the connections in the panel. I lost my lights once and it was a broken connector where the fuse goes in. I had to pull the wire out and rig up my own fuse.

a lot of times the sockets themselves will go bad. Check those, and finally get a voltmeter and put it across the wires at the bulbs - have someone push the brakes and see if you get 12v. If not, go further up the circuit and test there. Keep going toward the fuse box until you get 12v. Test at the pedal switch, see if you get anything there... If its a serious, complicated problem a lot of times its quicker and easier to just run your own wiring. Also, did you make sure you adjusted the pedal switch properly when you installed it?

SimpleXJ

I had a similar problem with my 1999 XJ (driverside only though). It turned out that a connector had worked itself loose. I simply pushed it securely back together and everything was fine. In my case it was the connector behind the plastic wall cover on the driver side of the rear cargo area.

-Brian

Trail Blazer said:

93XJ, bla bla bla....

Noticed i had no brake lights the other night. i checked every fuse i could find on the whole dam thing. all checked out fine. ok, so i bought a new brake switch (#56006981 dealer only $17.00). threw that in.............still no lights. i checked the lights themselfs, they work fine.......Is there a relay perhaps that i may have overlooked? please help...want to get out in the woods/rocks soon

Click to expand...

Ummm yea, ok....

ok....all the wires check out fine from the front to the rear. also i would still like to add that the flashers STILL dont work. i looked in a haynes manule about the wireing thing, it states the FLASHERS and the BRAKE switch both run off the same power line. i checked out that line (Pink w/blue stripe) and there is NO power in it. I found my relays under the dash, but since no book i have tells me what relay is what (cant find my owners manule) i may just replace them all. i also found a dead crawfish :dunno: tangled in some wires to give you all a hint of what my jeep goes through durring the hot days.

anyways, its 15* here, with about an inch of ice and snow on the ground....and my jeep is parked outside. hope this info helps, as my hands thaw out.....laters

Did you check right at the long connector right at the bottom of the stearing column? A wire broke there on my '88, I used two scotch locks and an inch of wire to fix it.

Had the same problem with my '89 due to a leaky clutch master cylinder. Had power at the fuse box and both the fuse and switch were ok. The problem was that the fuse box had cracked due to the leak and the electrical connectors in the fuse box were not tightly gripping the fuse. I took some pieces of aluminum foil and wrapped it around the individual ends of the fuse. Cured the problem in the short term. Come spring, I'll be replacing the fuse box.