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Brake lights dont work


Guest madisonight

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Guest madisonight

My brake lights don't come on, I have a 66 riviera,fuse good,brake switch good,bulbs good,is thier a fusable link or breaker I dont know about or do I just have a short.

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If your turn signals work that means that the wiring to the lamp and the bulb itself are okay. You've narrowed it down to the area of the switch. How did you test the switch? Is there an adjustment for the switch and where it contacts the pedal assembly.

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Guest madisonight

Yes their is an adjustment,it looks to be adjusted ok, I used a test light , I have power to the switch and power going out when switch is activated.

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Could that be bad even if the signals work.

Yes. These things will drive you nuts. The signals are fed by a different power source that does not come through the brake light switch (because you want signals even if you are not stepping on the brake).

Study the wiring diagram for your car. Determine which wire color comes out of the brake light switch and goes into the turn signal switch. Check for power at the turn signal switch with a test light when you apply the brakes.

Look at the wiring diagram to see how the power splits into a right and a left stop light feed. Check the power there without turning on any turn signals.

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Guest madisonight

Sure enough,looks like the white wire, I will check it out this weekend and let you know how things go. I have a manual on a cd my screen is so small I had to hooked it up to my 54inch bigscreen TV to see it.

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My brake lights don't come on, I have a 66 riviera,fuse good,brake switch good,bulbs good,is thier a fusable link or breaker I dont know about or do I just have a short.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I had a similar problem on my '65. All individual components checked out OK as yours have. I finally traced the problem to the turn signal switch which serves as the power source for the brake lights and turn signals. If you pull the steering wheel and remove the plastic camswitch assembly, on the back, you'll find two springwires that move over some contact "buttons" when the turn signal switch is moved. They operate in such a way as to allow one side to "blink" when in the left or right turn position, while sending steady,non-blinking power to the other side while the brakes are applied. I had to clean the contact "buttons" and tweak the springwires slightly to make better contact, then apply a very light coating of lithium elec.contact grease.

You might have someone step on the brakes and move the turnsignal lever around while you watch and see if you get anything out of the brake lights.

Hope this helps solve your problem.

Art Bohn

ROA#12350

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Guest madisonight

Thanks for everyones input,I got the brake lights working,It wasn't makeing good contact to the signal switch. I guess thats what happens when a car sits around for 8 years.

Working on a new problem now. I finaly have it road leagle and took it for a small ride around the block and it spewed water out of the radiator,this is after I flushed it about 5 time, had a lot of rust in it even use the radiator acid flush to clean it out, put in new thermostate and thought I would just run water for awhile and continue flushing till it came clean before adding antifreez. I could never get the heater to blow hot and the temp gauge only moved about 1/4 of the way up, Not sure if I have a bad thermostat or cloged water jacket,when it boiled out of raditaor the gauge still looked normal.

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