Brake light switch hard to activate | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Brake light switch hard to activate

ericsauvage08

Member
Joined
August 1, 2011
Messages
22
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0
City, State
Omaha, NE
Year, Model & Trim Level
04 XLT, 14 Limited
Hello everyone, been having some trouble with my brake light switch. Brake lights won't work and wont shift out of park. Jiggling the wire connector would temporarily solve the problem. But I was looking for something more permanent. Bought a replacement switch, a new metal one, spliced it in and installed. Seem to work like a charm. Ran a couple errands and came back to the car at the last store and it would not shift out of park. Used the override and drove it home. Now I cannot get the brake lights to go on without really stopping on the brake pedal, harder than I'd ever press them outside of an emergency stop. If I take the switch off and manually press on the switch with my fingers it doesn't take much pressure at all to get the brake lights to go on. Do I need to shimmy in a spacer? It activates so easily when I do it manually with my fingers. But once on the pedal it seems to activate easily the first time and then after that I have to stomp on it really hard to get the brake lights to go on. Any ideas?
 



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I don't know what the mounting bracket on that looks like but it seems like it might be mounted loose or bracket bent, but I'd also inspect the connector to see if the wires are frayed or connector contacts fouled. You can usually pull the wires out the back of Ford's connectors by pulling a plastic insert retainer piece out, to better inspect or clean them.
 






I have the same situation, switch works fine when i move it with hand, but when pressing pedal it only activates when i push really hard. How did you solve the problem? Did you replace the whole switch or fixed the old one?
 






I have the same situation, switch works fine when i move it with hand, but when pressing pedal it only activates when i push really hard. How did you solve the problem? Did you replace the whole switch or fixed the old one?

They're really finicky. It's easier to just replace the whole switch.
 






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