Dead Horse, dug up to be re-beaten...Brake lights/CruiseCNT

[Stuckonthedock]

I picked up a true diamond in the rough the other day. In prepping her to move, I noticed the brake lights on as soon as the battery was hooked up. Having worked on my own cars for 30+ years, I figured it had to do with the normally open switch that activates the lights. I searched forums and found the answer, the two nylon buttons that harden and pop out had, hardened and popped out that is.

I then bought 3M super double sided tape, the red stuff, inserted the buttons into their seats with tape under and the brake spring holding it all in place for 24 hours. This fix lasted long enough to drive the car home, then I found two nylon nubbins back on the floor. While I realize the correct fix is to get the parts from Nissan, I live 40 miles from the nearest dealer, so I fabricated two bumpers to fit the holes. Two bolts with hot melt glue bonding a wool felt pad to the head of the bolt. Seems to work like a charm.

Now to what justifies bringing this up, while installing my bumpers, I noticed that the switch plungers were offset from the holes meant to seat the original nylon bumpers. They had hemispherical heads that would barely contact the plunger of the switches if I had used OEM parts to fix it. This is bad because of the side loads put on the switch, it will fail much faster than if it were pressed nearly straight down as originally intended.

Seeing this made me think that this is probably a symptom of degradation of the bushing of the brake pedal, the offset forced by the spring. "So what?" you say? If you replaced your buttons, check the alignment of the bumper to switch plunger, if it is side loading your switches, consider fabricating a bumper that won't. Hope this saves someone from a future pita switch repair.

Cheers,
Dave

[evildky]

I have seen the switch hit the metal beside the hole on occasion turning off the brake lights, personally I just use adhesive feet from the hardware store, does the job just fine.