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While driving, my parking brake light comes on and goes off at will. If it stays on I jiggle the parking brake handle and it goes off.
Presuming the switch is bad, also presuming it is in the center console under the parking brake lever, but when I took everything apart, could not find a switch. (Presumed previous owner spilled coffee or soda and caused it to "stick".
the switch is behind the pivot point of the brake lever, it slides up and down for adjustment.
there is also a flange? that sticks out of the brake lever to contact the switch, you can bend this part out to make easier contact with the switch.
after unscrewing and lifting the plastic cover under the hand brake you have access to make all adjustments with a tiny screw driver.
The "switch" is a piece of metal on the e-brake & bracket. All you need to remove is the e-brake cup, plastic piece under the e-brake & the rear storage/cassette/CD piece. It's 3 screws, 2 in the back, one in the center under the e-brake lever.
The metal contact on the lever can move & create a contact as you drive. It happened to me. I just had to refit the metal contact back in the lever. There is also an adjustment on the switch part, it's held in with 2 tiny screws.
These instructions were super helpful getting my '95 emergency brake "switch" issue resolved. I needed to only bend and reinsert the metal contact of the "switch" into it's assembly. I did remove the assembly to reinsert the contact. There was a single bolt holding it in which required needle nose pliers due to limited clearance.
This is a close up of the e-brake lever and the switch/ contact that is just under the yellow dot
Last edited by danastetson; 03-12-2016 at 04:12 PM.
I've had the problem of the light not coming on when the brake is pulled. I opened it up and found the wire not attached. Can someone post a better pic of how the wire is attached?
This is mine
No worries. I was able to figure it out with the previous pic!
I figured out that the black plastic piece mounted in the metal loop, has a groove in the side that the metal piece on the wire slides into. I had to remove the plastic piece to put the two together & then remount the two.
The switch is just two pieces of metal which touch when they are in the right place and when the brake is applied.
Gavonder's pic is just how mine looked, with the metal contact only attached by the wire! Once I took the plastic part just visible in his pic out and mated it with the bent flat piece of metal, all was pretty good. I put loctite in the groove so that metal will never come out again. and once it was in, I burnished the contact side of the metal.
My pic shows how the screw (super long) comes out and how I retained the plastic part so I could get the screw started. It's not easy.
05-22-2011, 10:44 AM
Parking brake switch location?
