Brake/Reverse Light Issue (It's different I swear!)

[miltonwaddums]

Hi Guys,

First time caller, long time listener, blah, blah, blah...

I have an interesting issue at hand. My brake lights dont work (nor the reverse lights). Here's where it gets interesting. Both taillights work, the turn signals work, and the hazards work. I've checked the switch (both of them - I'm guessing one is cruise control?), the fuse, and obviosly the lights work. The license plate lights work as well.

I did JUST change the clutch. Any chance I knocked something loose under the hood?

The car doesn't have ESP and therefore there is no brake light relay in the main relay/fuse panel.

When checking the brake pedal switches, I also looked for voltage being supplied. One had voltage, the other did not so I'm assuming the one that did not was cruise control. Can someone verify? The closest thing I have to a wiring diagram is from this website (I hope I'm allowed to post the link):

http://www.justanswer.com/ford/1kpo4...l-reverse.html

It's a 2002 ZX5 5-speed with cruise. Please help! I can't drive with it like this!


Thanks - Jay

[Sponsor]

[TerryB]

You can look at the switches to see if everything is in order compared to this pic.

[miltonwaddums]

Thanks, that’s helpful. The black switch looks the same as mine, except I have a second green switch right behind it.

I’m going to be diving into it tonight.

[TerryB]

I drive an automatic, so I'm not familiar with the set-up. I only have a cruise and brake switch.

[miltonwaddums]

TerryB,

Is your cruise switch green and above the brake pedal (behind the black switch)?

[TerryB]

Yes it is. I don't remember if this is my actual pic or not. I've had it on my photobucket forever. I don't know if there is different placement on different years. I have a 2001.

[TerryB]

Maybe the first pic I posted doesn't have cruise control. IDK.

[adam6976]

there is a rev light switch in the tranny undrer the airbox that's what I put in to get my back up lights to work good luck

[miltonwaddums]

Success! (Sort of.) I have the brake lights working. I checked and rechecked everything I could for the brake lights and gave up fixing it for real after about 4 hours of looking. So I took a piece of speaker wire and 2 tap splices and ran a wire from the downstream side of the brake pedal switch (green/red I think) to the green/yellow wire at the connector in the left side of the trunk. Everything worked perfectly including all 3 brake lights and they even worked correctly with the turn signals and hazards. A little ghetto, but I don’t care because I can drive the car. (Plus it has 150,000 miles, so my “don’t give a *$%^” is running in full capacity mode.)

This thread has a picture of the connector I spliced into (the picture was actually posted by you, TerryB):

http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/s...=249493&page=2

On to the reverse lights next week hopefully.

Adam, thanks for the tip. That’s where I’m going to start (since I now know that EVERY fuse in the car is good). I gave it a visual check last night since I knew I had it unplugged when I swapped the clutch and it’s in there. I’ll yank it next week and test the contacts and whatnot.