EA Falcon Station Wagon Brake Lights - Ford Forums

Gecko · 06-11-2006, 23:18

I hope someone on here can help me with my problem before I have to take my car to an Auto Electrician.
I have noticed that my brake lights are going very dim and can hardly be seen. The high level brake light is working fine, but the two on the car are the problem.
I have looked in my car manual, but it wasn't much help. I have read that it could be a faulty earth wire. Can someone please tell me where I can find the earth wire for the brake lights as I know very little about cars?
The bulbs aren't blowing and the fuse is fine.

athol35 · 06-12-2006, 04:09

the earth wire can be either black,green,yellow or green with yellow trace,,take the trim off and look for a wire in one of those colours,,find the end and clean it or remove your bulbs and clean them and the holders

Gecko · 06-12-2006, 20:35

Hi athol35
I checked the earth wire from the brake lights and it appears to be intact and clean. Although I did notice that on the drivers side there appeared to be 2 relays. Placed behind the rear panel. They look like relays. Would these have anything to do with the brake lights being so dim?
I have removed the bulbs and cleaned the holders.

athol35 · 06-14-2006, 02:17

could be a loose wire in one of the relays,,or just a faulty one,,change them around and see if it makes a difference,if that don't help replace the relays.

Weazle · 06-14-2006, 17:46

Hello,

To check for a bad earth, try combinations of brake light, with tail light and indicators. If it all seems strange, then a bad earth is the cause. When the brakes are on, other lights will glow. You can test this by using a voltmeter between the car body and the side of the base of the globe. ( the big metal bit not the 2 soldered contacts on the base ) There should be no voltage with the brake lights on.

Weazle

Gecko · 06-15-2006, 02:06

I'm really grateful that you guys are helping me to try and work this problem out. I have a friend coming around tomorrow to try and help solve the problem as well.
I do have one more question that might or might not solve the problem.
On closer inspection of all the lights, I noticed that one of my parking light bulbs had blown. Surely this wouldn't affect the brake lights would it?
I have read that on other cars, this can cause other bulbs to not function corretly.

athol35 · 06-20-2006, 19:20

it shouldn't as the parkers have there own relay,,good luck with it though

Gecko · 06-21-2006, 15:45

You'll laugh athol35 when I tell you what the problem was in the end.

We checked all the wiring, relays, connections and the earth wires. And it all seemed ok.
We took the bulbs out and cleaned the contacts, but the problem was still there.
My mate thought we try some other bulbs. On placing them in we found that the lights were alot brighter.
So we checked the bulbs and found that the ones in the car were 24v when they should have been 12v.
So after all that it came down to the wrong voltage bulbs being in.
I felt like such an idiot

So thankyou for trying to help me out with my problem.
Now my car is back on the road

matt_eaghia · 09-15-2006, 00:14

oh dam gecko well atleast u and ur mate solved it i would have given up and taken it to a mechanic haha