Intermittent brake lights

Evening all,

Bit confused by this one. I have a 2.5td 1988 90 which I have intermittent brake light problem with. Either with side lights on or off the brake lights are still intermittent. Would this be caused by a bad earth?

Any help will be much appreciated.

Rjw90

If its only 1 brake light it could be the bulb holder on that side - if its both then yes its a wiring fault. Get your multimeter and check the live feed to the brake light side of the bulbs - put a brick on the brake pedal if that checks out ok then check the earth side of the circuit. Landy's do vibrate a little bit so wiggle the wires and check the reading on the meter to see if its a bad earth/connection/feed

Thank you. I hate electrics now. They just keep going wrong even though it had a re wire about 6 years ago.

RJW90 said:

Thank you. I hate electrics now. They just keep going wrong even though it had a re wire about 6 years ago.

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Try swiveling the fuse in its holder, might be a bad contact there. Take fuse out and clean ends and fuse holder, if its old that is.

Try:
1: new fuse
2: shoogle wires and press the brake switch in the cab
3: check earths at the rear of fender
4:check bulb...swap with a working bulb to proof the holder
5 check clip connection plug
6: IF ALL THAT DOESN'T WORK....SHOUT, SWEAR, RATTLE PARTS THEN REPLACE THEM ALL AS I DID

should work now, if not.....leave it, lol

Did you fix it then ??

Nothing like replying late. But haven't been on for a while for one reason or another. I cleaned all connections and replaced fuses and seemed to be working until recently. Now they have stopped working again. Checked switch and that appears to be working well. Going to run more tests on the earth and feeds to the light units themselves. Failing that I'm a bit stuck. Is it likely something inside the servo is causing the problem?? Even though my brakes work well and haven't changed performance wise for the last year or so since the repairs were carried out to some springs within the brake drums.

RJW90 said:

Nothing like replying late. But haven't been on for a while for one reason or another. I cleaned all connections and replaced fuses and seemed to be working until recently. Now they have stopped working again. Checked switch and that appears to be working well. Going to run more tests on the earth and feeds to the light units themselves. Failing that I'm a bit stuck. Is it likely something inside the servo is causing the problem?? Even though my brakes work well and haven't changed performance wise for the last year or so since the repairs were carried out to some springs within the brake drums.

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To confirm then, is it both brake lights that aren't working?

The brake lights (at least on 200tdi...presume td will be similar), piggy back off each other on the drivers side panel at the back, and then go to passenger side.

It's possible it could be a lose wire there, Take the panel off, and get a multimeter and check if there's electricity going to the cable (i sometimes use crook lock to hold brake pedal down if working on my own, otherwise find a willing volunteer). If there's electricity there, take a light cover off and see if there's electricity there. This should narrow down where the fault is.

Yeah, both brake lights fail at the same time. The wiring is the same on the td as the 200tdi, I'm fairly confident about that. I will be hunting down the cause of the problem today. Thank you all for your help.

Right, it turns out to be the brake light switch after all. Had tested previously and was working well. Gone through testing everything else but nothing was causing a problem so, started from the units working back and everything was working until it came to the switch, which at first was working but continued pressing it on and off and ended up that the switch is the cause of the intermittent brake lights. Thank god for that haha.

Just put the new switch in. It worked off the vehicle so let's hope that cures the problem. Thanks again for the advice. Much appreciated.