Help with taillights

[Twisted-X]

Fired up the car today after not driving it for a few months. It seemed to run and drive like normal (after I replaced part of the fuel line... again). Shut the car off, went inside. 20 mins later the neighbor is banging on my door telling me that my taillights are still on. The car's off, the keys are out, but the taillights are still on? Anybody ever heard of the taillight switch going bad and causing the lights to stay on? Its a cheap fix if that's the case, any thoughts as to other causes?

'90 CV LX

[gadget73]

Is it the tail lights or the stop lights? Stop lights I could imagine the brake light switch going bad. Tail lamps could possibly be the headlight switch, but it would most likely make the front marker lights be on too, since its tied together.

[Twisted-X]

Sorry. To clarify, it is the stop lights. The third light is illuminated also :p

[gadget73]

prob the brake switch under the dash attatched to the brake pedal shorted if I had to guess. Once you contort yourself to see it, unplug one of the wires and see if the lights go out. If they do, the switch is either bad, or has somehow come undone from the brake pedal so its not switching off.

[1987cp]

Wait, we've had a member living near Jackson for nearly a year? You must keep your eyes peeled for our pathetic attempts at organizing southern Michigan meets, dude!

Thankfully, it looks like new brake light switches are available from AutoZone for only about 8 bucks: http://www.autozone.com/selectedZip,.../selectZip.htm Otherwise, I'd have suggested seeing if Ivan can hook you up (I stupidly didn't harvest the one from the '79 wagon last winter .... grrr.).

Thain, the brake-light wiring on a cruise-control-equipped car does go through the cruise control junk ... I wonder if it could somehow get shorted in there somewhere?

[gabegt90]

get a motorcraft one they are better than those other ones. jeremy said he 2 of those autozone brakelight switch were bad.

[gadget73]

Thain, the brake-light wiring on a cruise-control-equipped car does go through the cruise control junk ... I wonder if it could somehow get shorted in there somewhere?

possible, but unplugging the $8 switch would determine if its the that or something else. The stop lamp switch gets more action than most of the other parts in the system, and its somewhat more accessible. Might as well start at the easiest point and go from there.

[Tiggie]

Sticking stop lamp switch. I've got the cheapo AutoZone one in my car. Working good for over a year.

[Twisted-X]

Thanks for the replies guys! I'm going to check it out right now.

Yeah, I've been to Jackson once with this car. She's a northern car all her life so there's lots of rust on the bottom. The engine is pretty rough too, coz the previous owners didn't change the oil often
Yeah, you should have seen the PCV filter when I finally got it removed. Can you say OEM?

But it runs and drives for now

[Twisted-X]

Turns out it was the brake light switch. Weird.
The one I took out looks almost brand new, like there no rust on it at all:



BTW mods, thanks for moving this thread. Will try to post in the correct section in the future

[1987cp]

Very strange. Glad it was a straightforward fix, though!