Intermittent break lights

[Disturbedguy]

Hello all,

Just looking for some help, noticed yesterday that on my mums car (1.8i Cavalier) which is a good 12 years old I think, that she has an intermittent problem with the break lights, one break press they will work, the next 4 or 5 they won't.

Ruled out the fuse as the indicators all work fine.
Changed bulbs to rule them out being the problem.

Today we tested pressing the break with various forces going from soft to hard thinking this could be the issue, but it wasn't, pressing the break pedal hard one second resulted in lights on, pressing it hard a few minutes later and no lights, pressed it softly and lights, then hard an no lights.

Pressed hard 5 times in a row, it lit up once, pressed 5 times softly and no lights.

Has anyone got any suggestions?

[kalniel]

Brake light switch?

[Disturbedguy]

Brake light switch?

The what?

I dont know much about cars.

The stuff I have already tried, was just stuff that was easily checkable.

Where is the switch?

[GoNz0]

on the brake pedal, you cant miss it as it has wires coming off it. best bets to buy a new one so you can see how it comes off.

[kalniel]

The what?

On older cars the brake light is turned on/off simply by a plunger switch physically pressed by the brake pedal - as you press the brake pedal it connects the circuit and the brake lights turn on

It's something like this:
http://ekmsecure2.com/ekmps/shops/va...art-1062-p.asp

[Disturbedguy]

Hmm cheers Kal, will check the car tomorrow after work.

[jimbouk]

If you have a Haynes manual then trace the wires from the main loom to the switch and to the light - it sounds like a bad connection somewhere. Remove and clean up the switch and any other connectors on the way, and look out for any damaged wire just in case!

[Disturbedguy]

Don't have a Haynes manual which is a problem.

Have checked online and they seem to be cheap enough from places such as Amazon, so might be worth buying one if we dont get it fixed.