Parking Brake Light Acting Funny

[mranderson214]

Greetings Everyone,

I have an '02 with about 170,000 miles on it. Recently I started having a problem and I have not heard of anyone else having a similar problem so I thought I'd try here. The problem is with my parking brake.

What's supposed to happen is when the parking brake is depressed (activated), the red brake light should light up on the instrument panel to let me know that its on. When the brake is up (deactivated), that light should go off. Whats happening is that when I push the brake down to activate it, the parking brake light doesnt come on, or if it does come on, it will come on after about 5 minutes or so of the brake being activated.

I do not think there is anything wrong with the parking brake as when I put the car in neutral on a slight incline/decline, the parking brake holds the car steady and when i pull it back up, the car begins to coast. I checked the brake fluid and even added some more as a precaution and the problem still persists. My mechanic says the brake pads still have enough on them (front and back pads). I doubt that it is something wrong with the light in the instrument cluster because on power-on, the parking brake light shows up nice and bright, like it always did prior to this happening. The truck also has a brand new battery in it, which is less than a month old already.

Its not that big of a deal as long as I remember to pull up on the parking brake before driving, to deactivate it. The problem is that a few times, I forgot to deactivate the brake and since there wasnt any indication on the dashboard, I drove about a mile before hearing a strange sound and then i remembered to check the parking brake. So its a bit inconvenient.

I read the user manual and it seems that if the brake fluid is low or the brake pads are low, the "brake" light STAYS on. My case is the opposite. My "brake" light stays off most of the time.

Has anyone had any similar problems? Might this be a fuse or something wrong with the parking brake cable? Thanks in advance.

 

[The Chief]

Probably the electrical contacts at the parking brake. There is a wire harness there that should have a switch to activate the dash light when the parking brake is engaged. If the PB works fine but you're worried about the light....check the wiring and connections at the pedal itself. Make sure they're clean and making contact. That is where I'd start.

 

[mranderson214]

Thanks. I'm guessing that the wire harness you mentioned is up behind the parking brake itself. Like under the drivers-side dashboard?

 

[The Chief]

Yeah. Lemme go grab my phone and see if I can get a picture for you to follow. Gimme a few....

 

[The Chief]

See the plug? This is right above the parking brake. Check to make sure its plugged in and if so not shorted. Clean contacts etc. If thats not it then we will have to dig deeper.

 

[The Chief]

I think the pic is upside down but u get the point.

 

[mranderson214]

Great! Thanks Chief, I'll give that a try as soon as the snow clears up and its not so messy outside. Thanks for the picture too! I'll post my findings

 

[BigRondo]

On my '02 I had the same problem.

I removed the switch and cleaned the contacts with very fine grit sand paper and it has been working for close to 3 years.

On the '02 the ground is switched.

Hope this helps out.

 

[mranderson214]

Thanks Rondo and Chief, as you guys showed and mentioned; that was the problem. Basically I found the switch and the connection seemed to be a little loose. When I pushed it together, with the brake enabled, I realized that the light would come on perfectly fine. So I cleaned the connectors and remounted the switch and its been working fine so far!

Thanks to both of you for the help!

 

[BigRondo]

Nice job on the fix!! :biggthump