brake light woes

C

confusedlincolnowner

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I was unable to disengage from park to drive. I did some research on the internet, and found that the BOO switch might be the culprit. After checking and replacing the BOO switch, I found that my brake lights were still not working. In fact, when I depressed the brake pedal, the fuse popped. I have turn indicators, but no headlights or brake lights. Has anyone encountered a similar problem with their car? I could really use the help as I am trying to fix this problem myself, if it is possible. Everything will work with a 30 amp fuse, but I am worried about frying wires with such a wattage.
 
Brake Woes

Brake Woes

I have replaced Brake on off switch, and the lights come on when I put a 30 amp fuse in #32, but when I put the regular fuse that is needed and press the brake to start the car, the fuse pops, and the shifter won't let me go from park to drive. I tested the lights, they work, but once again, when the break peddle is pressed, the fuse blows prohibiting the car from being shifted. I am really confused and bummed. Do you think there is a short in the car? Also, the center light has been out for a while, so I don't think that is it. But then again, I don't know much about this.
 
Thank you!!!!

Thank you!!!!

Alexander, I went out into the dark night with my wife and followed your advice. It worked!!! Thank you SO much! You have saved me a ton of cash!!!!!
 
Thanks for posting your questions here! Make sure you bless us with your presence some more and stick around :D
 
I am blessing you with my presence again. All seems well, except when I was pulling away, my wife called me to tell me that although the brake lights are working, my tail lights are now not working. Do you think this might be a fuse that might have been blown earlier?:confused:
 
Yeah, another fuse. When the ballast goes bad TWO fuses usually blow. Check the one for the tail lights.
 
Yes, two fuses blow when the tail light ballast short circuits, the brake pressure switch fuse (32) plus another one, I am not sure if it was 31 or 21.

When you replace the ballast, you will have taillights again. I was lucky, I had additional lights that I had installed years ago to use at night until I received the new ballast. See: http://mark8.org/lod/lightshow.htm

You might be able to bypass this by putting in a resistor across the plug you pulled from the neon light, though offhand I do not know what the ohm resistance should be.

Be aware that the new ballast is much lighter than the original ballast, so the trunk lid will not be properly balanced for the springs. It will fly open when released. I solved that by adding thick sheet metal stock from Home Depot under the ballast.


confusedlincolnowner said:
I am blessing you with my presence again. All seems well, except when I was pulling away, my wife called me to tell me that although the brake lights are working, my tail lights are now not working. Do you think this might be a fuse that might have been blown earlier?:confused:
Click to expand...
 
The new ballast is not hard to install. The neon tail light is held in by acorn nuts. Four are visible on the corners of the trunk, the rest are hidden under the sound deadening material. I think there are five from the picture I have stored on my computer. Be careful not to let the nuts fall between the sheet metal layers of the trunk. You will have a difficult time recovering them. Once you have all the nuts off, gently remove the neon ballast. Those bolts are attached to plastic that is extremely fragile. The clips are liable to break. If a few break, you can fix them with epoxy.

The old ballast is easily removed by unclipping its mount and unbolting it from the mount.

I used 1/4 inch thick 1 1/4 inch steel bar stock (bought at Home Depot) as a counter weight to compensate for the lighter replacement ballast. Here it is drilled on the mount and ready to accept the new ballast:

bar-stock-drilled.jpg


This the ballast bolted on with the plastic bolts provided in the kit:

ballast-on-barstock.jpg



Wires are spliced from the original ballast on one side:

ballast-wiring.jpg


And the other side:

ballast-wiring2.jpg


This is the finished assembly:

ballast-finished.jpg


You can see the original ballast on the bottom of the picture. It is much bigger than the replacement.
 
Shouldn't look right to anyone. Easy instructions would be red to red, blue to blue, green to green....NOT green to red and red to blue! COME ON GUYS! Serge was unsure about his "skills" so when you throw in the wrong color coding, its gonna screw him all up! :D
 
Der, haha. I know that, its just funny how you can easily screw something up when they don't match the color wires. Why wouldn't they...you know?
 
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