Mechanical brake light switch?

[tmcg]

Hello

My brake lights take a long time to come on i.e. they only come on when applying a lot of pressure to the brakes, often when driving in stop start traffic etc, they will often not come on at all at lower pressures. I adjust the brakes (still drums all round) regularly, although switching to discs up front soon.

This got me thinking, other than making sure the switches are all up to scratch on the master cylinder and wiring all ok.

Has anybody added a mechanical brake switch to the circuit, which connects to the brake pedal mechanism ?
Thus meaning brake lights come on as soon as you touch brake pedal.

Was thinking sthing like this https://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/product/185/category/38

Other than that will continue scaring the tailgaters round where I live :msn4:

 

[Tofufi]

That looks a bit over-complicated. Wouldn't a push to break switch under the cab floor (so the pedal contacts it when the brake isn't being pushed) be an easier solution?

 

[tmcg]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense, then just a case of making sure its waterproof I guess.

Just been doing some googling and a guy has done a similar thing on the samba
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7964822

Although this uses a switch from a chevvy which doesn't look like its readily available in the UK. They also start talking about adding relays etc which seems like its massively over engineering it / too many additional things to go wrong.

 

[sparkywig]

Why not just change the brake switch in the master cylinder?

 

[tmcg]

Going to do that, but even with a new pressure switch not sure that it will solve the issue - wondering if that could ever be as fast at coming on as a mechanical switch?

It may just be that one of my pressure switch's is kaput, but I get a fair amount of brake pedal travel/amount of pressure on brakes before lights come on.

Is only really an issue when people are really tailgating/in city traffic ques etc.

 

[Happystamps]

There should be no real difference in reaction time between a mechanical switch and a hydraulic one- the free play in the pushrod is only something like 1mm. I'd bet your switch is just old and gunked up.