Brake lights, hazards, turn signals don't work

[ScratchinFerTra]

Had the car all apart to put in a TKO600 with clutch quadrant kit, 9" and new brakes all around removing ABS lines.

The car had perfect wiring before all this, after the first start up, no brake lights, turn signals or hazards. The fuse was blown (15A), so I replaced it fixing the problem until a 10 minute drive. Did this for the first few trips dialing in suspension and finally ordered a multi-function switch after reading many posts from a search here.

Well, I needed some brake lights to get to the store to pick up the multi-function and unfortunately only had a 25A, of course all was well until I got nearly home, then no more signals, meaning I thought the fuse blew.

Checked the fuse, still good, tried another, no fix, replaced the multi-function (Advance Auto version), no fix.

Anyone have any ideas where to check to see what wire I likely burned out, or ideas what caused the short in the first place. I already checked around the clutch quadrant from reading another post, and no wires are close to the quadrant that could be pinched.

Thanks,
Stan

 

[HISSIN50]

Hey Stan!

Did you happen to check around the brake pedal arm as well? Wires are known for getting pinched there as well.

Do you know if your middle (third) brake light works?

Inside the car, fuses 1 and 9 are important (as you know). In the Underhood fusebox, there's a 25 amp fuse for the lights that I'd check. It might have blown first since its rating is the same as the fuse you retrofitted.

Otherwise, check power into and out of the lighting fuses in the underhood box. If ok, do the same in the interior fusebox. There's a chance that there's an open from chafing or a wire melting.

Good luck with it!

 

[StadEMS3]

My Steeda clutch quadrant rubbed a small hole in the wires and was shorting them out. I've heard of lighting issues like this a few times on here...

 

[ScratchinFerTra]

Thanks JT and StadEMS3. I did another serious look for wires in any bad position around the quadrant and brake pedals and every moving part under the dash.

JT-the 25A fuse under the hood was blown (thank god!), replaced that and made sure I had the right amp fuse in 1 and 9. Took a country block trip and so far so good, hoping the MFS was the original culprit.

Thanks,
Stan

 

[ScratchinFerTra]

Quick update - all fine now.

It turns out when you install an adjustable cable/quadrant kit the factory spring is not used on the quadrant. This allows the clutch pedal to shift a little left/right, and right above the clutch pedal is where the factory routing is for the brake light that connects to the brake pedal.
When the clutch is pushed all the way to the floor, the one corner on top of the clutch pedal rubs the brake switch wiring, thus grounding it out blowing the fuse.

Thanks for the help.
Stan

 

[maustang]

This post helped me find the fix for a problem that was frustrating the heck out of my engineering mind. Thanks for posting a detailed discription of the found issue. I also installed a Steeda adjustable clutch kit in my 1995 'stang and after reading this post found wires at the top of my clutch petal worn out, exposing bare wire to the top of the clutch petal when depressed. For now I simply pushed this wire toward the brake petal to move it away from the cutting plane of the clutch petal swing. For you visual folks, I've attached a picture of the problem. I'm going to take a minute to vent about this and other petal assembly repairs, as an unflexible long armed 6' 1" guy I hate working on the petal assembly - enough said. BTW, this adjustable cable assembly is pretty much a must have on any high performance clutch upgrade. I was unable to establish a proper adjustment without it.