Brake light help

[A_Bus_Called_Quest]

Skoolie Fam! The "Brake lights dont work" bug has bitten me!!

I am 99.99% sure these were working - we're getting ready to take her out for a "get-out-of-hibernation" drive, to get some fuel and get all of the juices up to temperature. Last night I had a vision, and tonight while doing an outside inspection I noticed THE BRAKE LIGHTS DONT WORK!

How could this happen?! I was so careful! haha


First off - lame question. I swore the brake lights were the lower red lights, NOT the upper lights with the shades (i thought these only flashed with the stop sign)
I have both sets of lower red lights active when the bus lights are on - but I get no action when I press the brake pedal.

I was super careful when removing wiring and cleaning up the dash electric housing (previous owners spilled coffee all over the inside of the electric box, so I HAD to get in there and do some cleaning).

As mentioned - I am 99% sure the brake lights WERE working, but now that I've gotten so far in the build of course now they fail.

Is there any kind of fuse or disconnection that could have happened up by the pedal or engine?

Do the brake lights run through the same 'reds' as the exterior lights?

Is there a fuse that could have blown, saving me hours of diging through the wall to trace the wire?

Any ideas are welcome - I'm stumped here and really don't want to start taking down the ceiling to trace the wire.

As always - I appreciate all of you, your info and advice is priceless.

[magnakansas]

Most have four brake lights. Two of the big round ones that are in the middle. Middle, in terms of up and down. Then, the two smaller ones like are used for the license plate lights. If all four are out, go back to the switch that feeds them power, inject 12volts there and see if they light, betting they will. If they do light. Follow power source to fuse box (power center). I’ve been working for two days getting a bus out of hibernation too.

William

Telephone if you want to talk test/repair strategies

7852077600

[A_Bus_Called_Quest]

So at least I have the right lights, haha.

I will have to see if I can find the brake light power source in my dash rat's nest.

Dashboard fuse box looks like it may have been rewired at some point, there is no fuse for brakes.

Going to try to track down the brake pedal switch also, maybe something wrong there.

*sigh* now to take apart the dash. . . Again.

[A_Bus_Called_Quest]

Following up- so far all of the wires driver-side look fine. Everything seems to be connected and runs through the giant red wiring harness from the dash to back of bus.

Looking at light bulbs and sockets now -reading prior posts I see sometimes there can be corrosion causing a bad connection.

I might have one bad bulb, it looks a little blackened, and its pair is an amber bulb - so I'm going to get a new pair now.

Attached pics of the fuse box (sans brake fuses) and dash-side wiring harness for reference. Im kn mobile now so apologies if they attach weird.

The red and orange cut wires in the harness were for the side and rear emergency door alarms, they ran to little pressure switches in the door frames. I tested brakes after disconnecting these and everything worked so I don't think that is the problem. They were the only wires removed from rear of bus aside from the speaker wires (so, so much speaker wire!)

There is one fried connection in the "rats nest" (what do you call this anyway?). The connection runs from the bus bar to the Master Sw connection on the yellow 'Eight Lamp Bus Flasher" terminal.

Last but not least, there are a bunch of relays under the hood, in front of the driver on the firewall. Any idea what these do (before I trace them all over the bus)?

[A_Bus_Called_Quest]

[emoji1787] So... lesson from one total newbie to another. Get to know your bus, and all of the parts.

It just occurred to me, my bus uses air brakes, it has an air brake light switch... Holy sh** i probably need air in the tank!

Yeah. Brake lights work. Make sure you have air in your tank for brake lights.

Thanks to all the pros on here for taking us newbies under your wings through the skoolie build. I know I wouldn't have made it this far without y'all.