No brake lamps.

[DavidRutherford]

What should be a simple problem is turning into a pain.

The brake lamp on the DTR have stopped working, which I'm lead to believe is a fairly serious issue. Stopping and having people run into the back of you is never a good thing.

There's 12v to the pedal switch, and the switch works fine, so it has to be a problem with the lead from the switch to the lamps. All well and good, but can I find a problem? Can I hell.

Does anyone know where the brake lamp cable links across from the dashboard loom to the front-to-rear ribbon cables? I assume it's somewhere behind the fusebox, but I don't want to go pulling everything apart AGAIN if it's not.

Ta muchly.

[Brian]

Hi David,

I had this same problem on my first BX.

I simply run a new cable from the swiched side of the stop lamp switch to the back of the light cluster.

The cable was run under the carpet down the drivers side.

I used one of those flexible kite struts as a feeder..

Good luck

[AndersDK]

Its more than likely the feed ribbon cable from the junction box towards rear that is chafed - or corroded because of an earlier trailer socket connection.

Remove the luggage compartment LHS side panel, and you will find the ribbon cable here. You can see it comes up over the sharp edge from under the rear seat cushion. Exactly in that spot there is a good chance the cable is damaged.
Using a sharp knife you can separate a single cable from the ribbon and do repairs to that one. The individual cables in the ribbon are spaced rather far from each other - only held by a thin plastic film.

Replace the brakes light switch by a large wattage bulb (old headlamp bulb is perfect) by way of a couple of short leads and male spade connectors. The bulb will light up if you do any shortcircuits - and you can then continue your work - not interrupted by a blown fuse.
Makes it a lot less hassle to work on an electric circuit in a car.

A final note : all rear lights connections are terminated in the LHS rear lights cluster. From there - a separate ribbon cable leads to the RHS rear lights cluster with all connections for the RHS rear lights.

[docchevron]

If memory serves, which it probably doesn't since I've had a few jars, the wire from the switch runs rather untidily across the the top of the heaterbox and terminates in a white plug on the fusebox. I'll check fo shizzle in teh morning, when I'm less bladdered.

[DavidRutherford]

Just as a little follow-up to this:

I was convinced the problem was at the fusebox as I'd just had the complete dash out, and of course you always suspect whatever you've just been working on.

After much frustration and poking with a multimeter, it transpired that the fault was at the ribbon-cable-to-LH-lamp-cluster connection. Very wibbly connection that you only had to touch for it to work/not work.

Wynns Electrical contact cleaner spray FTW!

Now all I need to fix is the intermittent ABS.

[docchevron]

Now all I need to fix is the intermittent ABS.

That'll be the O/S/F ABS sensor then. It always is.