I have a 90 xj and my brake lights stay on when the engine and all switches are off. I opened the door and can smell that electric smell like you get when an electrical device is on or hot. When i press the brake pedal the lights do get brighter so i dont think its the pedal switch. Anyone have any ideas? oh and i pulled the break light fuse and they go off.

 

Replace the switch on the pedal.

 

wouldn't this be the case if they DIDN'T get brighter when i actually press the brake?

in my case they do get brighter

 

Not always. My ex had her ford do the same thing. When you don't push the peddle it's shorting and not making full contact. When you push the peddle it's making full contact.

 

awesome, thanks you i will check it out. is the switch on the driver side or firewall side of the pedal?

 

Driver.

 

good deal. thank you

 

well i replaced the switch and they are still stuck on.

 

so there is a 4 amp inline fuse that connects to one of the wires on the brake light switch and then goes straight into the fuse panel. when i pull it the lights are no longer stuck on and i do have brake lights still. just not sure what else isnt working since i pulled it?

 

not factory I gather ? Aftermarket alarm ?

 

not sure but now my dumb bendix brake system isnt acting all funny. it actually brakes without wheel chatter?! lol i gues it wasnt a bad fuse to pull seeing as how everything works fine now haha

 

musta been abs fuse back feeding.

 

So now you know - when somebody on a forum says, "Replace this or that." without doing any testing, it's usually the wrong thing to do.


Test first, then replace.

In this case, you could have tested the switch just by disconnecting it, and putting a jumper across the connnector. You would have functioanlly replaced the swtich and would have immedicately seen that it made no difference. So, you'd know the problem was elsewhere without spending money on a switch you didn't need.

Throwing parts at a problem based on somebody saying "Oh, I think it must be this part." or, "Well, I had a problem that sounds the same and replacing that part fixed it." is lousy troubleshooting, and often very expensive, but it's what we see most often on this board.

Replacing basic maintenance items (coil, plugs, rotor, etc., and sometimes sensors) is an exception, of course. They are known problem areas and should be done on most of these old vehicles.

 

valid point and very true. i didnt know that was a way of testing it and didnt wanna jump something without knowing much about the electric components dedicated to that specific system. i figured if anything i get a new switch that i can not worry about going out anytime soon.

 

Well excuse me. Op im sure has a garage full of testing equipment at his disposal. Comments like these from super internet mechanics seem to be what I see a lot on this forum. Having all information about second wire with in line fuse would of been more helpful in trouble shooting. As stated above pulled brake light fuse issue went away. So that indicates issues with switch possibly having slight contact causing a dim light issue . Oh wait replace switch oopps forgot to mention there a second fuse going to brake light switch from my abs system.