it's not 'THAT HARD' to check that power is present at the brake light
switches.......
and it's not that hard to see if voltage comes out of them when you stomp on
the pedal good and hard.

if juice comes out of the switches......
you look in your Bentley, for the right year for your vanagon, and you find
the color of wire at the back that has brake light voltage on it.

it it's at the front, but not the rear..............worst case run a new
wire.
It's far better to have both brake light switches working.........
it's a safety warning device.........to alert the driver that one of the two
brake circuits isn't working right.

you just have to teach you mind to test for the presence of voltage where it
belongs.
and you gotta have a test light.....they're as cheap as $ 2.95 at a FLAPS.

hope you find it ~!
Scott

----- Original Message -----
From: "M'obeechi" <obeechi@RUNBOX.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 2:54 PM
Subject: Re: Brake Lights

Maybe I can follow your suggestion with the dash still installed?

Maybe also, there could be a way to install manual override at the switch so
I can manually flip the brake lights "on" as a temporary fix? I was thinking
of bringing wire all way back to the bulbs directly... but this could be a
shorter distance...

From: Edward Maglott <emaglott@BUNCOMBE.MAIN.NC.US>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Brake Lights

> I would start with the switches on the master cylinder.  check for
> continuity between the terminal on the switch to ground when the
> brake pedal is depressed.
> Edward
>
> At 02:39 AM 1/2/2009, M'obeechi wrote:
> >My brake lights aren't working.
> >
> >The bulbs are good, and new
> >
> >The fuses replaced... more than once...
> >
> >A switch replaced... the guy said it only needed one switch .. there
> >are two... for redundancy I guess...
> >
> >They were working yesterday... but not today...
> >
> >This is really starting to get on my nerves... Is there a secret
> >place or way to solve this?
> >
> >I'm ready to just wire in a light I switch manually if I can't get
> >this solved...
>

----- End Original Message -----