No brake lights

I have a 1950 Ford with a 12 volt 18 circut painless wiring kit installed. My brake lights quit working and I'm out of ideas. I've replaced the bulbs and the switch. I can't fine a fuse. I've checked every fuse in the fuse box and separate fuses I've found elsewhere on the car. I checked connections and all appear good. Running lights and turn signals work fine. What else am I missing?

 

after the switch the grounds.

 

do you have brakes?

 

well if your turn signals worked it was not the bulbs.

get yourself a digital multimeter and poke around. sounds like the brake switch or the wiring or grounds connected to it.

 

what kind of brake light switch do you have? Could also be problem in your turn signal switch. I would check to see if you have power to the switch, then short the terminals together and see if they work then.

 

I replaced the switch, I have brakes, and I dont see any grounds. I have a digital multimeter, but I'm not very good with it. What should I be checking for?

 

It could be in the turn signal switch, there are a lot of contacts in there and the ones that make/break the connections between the brake light switch and the tail lights could be corroded or fried.

 

The brake lite switch sends power to the brake lights through your turn signel switch.
Take a wire with one end connected to 12V touch the other end to one side of the brake sw do you have brake lights? if not touch other side of brake switch.do you have brake lights? If you have brake lights you have lost power to the brake switch.
If you have checked all the fuses the next step is the wireing. EZ has a good help line.

 

The light socket itself should be grounded. Sometimes the sockets go bad and no longer are making contact with the bulb. Sometimes they loos their ground. I would look there.

Have someone apply the brake and then take a screw driver and poke around on the socket or take a wire and ground one end of it then touch it to the outside of the light socket.

Maybe that will work.

 

Did the brake lights work and then suddenly stop working? Sure sounds like a blown fuse, even though you said you couldn't find one. usually you have a seperate fuse for the brake lights, but not sure about your set-up. Might be worth checking again

 

switches are easy to check... 12+ volts going in, you should have the same going out the other side when you hit the switch.

is the switch manual or a pressure switch in the brake lines? either way the test with the meter is the same.

I'd get a stick and push the brake pedal. prop it on the seat or something so it stays put.

start at the switch. 12+ volts in, and 12+ volts out. it should match the voltage at the battery.

no volts in? follow that wire to the next connection and check again.

volts in but none going out? bad switch

volts in and out... follow that wire to the next connection and check voltage and grounds until you get to the tail lights. to check a ground put one end of your meter on a known hot wire and put the other on the ground.

give all your connections a light pull and see if the wire comes out. check for corrosion at all connection points. I had an old car where every connection was green with crud. stuff was constantly failing . finally went through and cleaned every connection I could find and put new ends on the wires.

do your blinkers and brake lights use the same bulb?

 

Check the continuity of the wire with your multi meter. It will tell you if there is a break in the line, but not where. That should help you narrow it down some.

Jerry

 

Problem solved. The new switch was also bad. Its getting harder and harder to get quality parts anymore. All these ****y mexican, chinese, or indian parts are bad a quarter of the time. I think I would have better luck at the salvage yard! I think half of my 50 Ford is pieced together with foreign parts. Thanks for all the help!

 

As 49Ratfink said, on that car, if you have turn signals (in the original lights) the bulbs and grounds are ok.

As a couple of others have said, make sure that you have power to the switch and then power out. If there is no power to the switch go to the fuse block.
According to the manual the wire from the fuse block to the switch is orange and the wire from the switch to the turn signal switch is white.
That's on page 27 on the manual for 10102 but should be the same for all of their kits.

Here is a list of manuals for the various wiring harnesses. Can't help you with a number but you should be able to figure it out. http://www.painlesswiring.com/manuals.php

It's a process of elimination and one has to go one step at a time.