My brake light switch stopped working but I have two switches under the dash. One has a vacuum line to it and two terminals. the other looks like the one listed on parts websites for my car. The chilton book sucks. Whats going on here? As far as I'm aware I don't have cruise control or ABS.

 

The store shows this thing with a spot for one connector. Mine has one on the back and the side.

 

lol guys I figured it out

 

Fat lot of help we were!

By the way, "loosing" rhymes with "goosing". Or "juicing".

The word you are looking for is, "losing", one "o". It rhymes with "boozing", which you shouldn't be doing!

 

What ended up being the issue is kinda silly. The rear brake lights are dual filament. I took the lights apart and noticed if I tap the passenger bulb, the "on the brake pedal" filament will come on and stay on until I unplug the switch under the dash. The driver side never came on. I swapped the bulbs and the questionable bulb did the same thing on the driver side. It came on as soon as I plugged it in. I guess it broke "on". Once I replaced the bulbs the brake lights worked as designed when I pressed the pedal. What a waste of time.

 

The switch in the top picture is for the trans computer. If that's misadjusted or bad, it will prevent the torque converter from locking up. It actually works backwards from the brake switch in that the tcu needs to see 0 volts to think the brake is pressed. The vac line is to release any vacuum on the cruise control solenoid when you hit the brakes.

 

that explains why it's changing gears up and down like a chicken now.