2 Years ago I bought a 1995 Mustang GTS, Its canary yellow and bone stock. I added a Steeda Shifter, Offroad X, flow master American Thunder 40s, Cold Air Intake and Cobra R rims. Now I'm getting into modding it a bit and fixing some of the nagging issues its been having. Its got a few Electrical problems. With the high beams on the indicator in the dash will not come on so the only way I know the high beams are on is if the fog light indicator is off. I replaced all my cluster bulbs with leds and swapped the bulb for the high beam and still no change. I figure its probably the multifunction switch. However now my Emergency brake light will not come on either. I checked the bulb its good and it will come on at start up breifly then turn off. I dont get a chime that the e brake is up or a light. I disconnected the switch at the bottom of the ebrake and still no change I'm wondering if they are unrelated and 2 separate issues or they could be connected somehow.
Electrical Gremlins
- Thread starter wnyman10
- Start date
ttocs
Post Whore
I would guess its the multifunction switch as well. The steering column isn't hard to take apart I think its only held on with 2 screws and the ignition cylinder. It should only tak 5 mins to take it off and see if you see anything wrong with it. I don't have my mustang electrical bible(I need to start taking it with me to the hospital with my laptop as I thin this is the 3rd question since Monday that I could help answer if I had it) with me right now but with a little research we should be able to find a wire or two too test(assuming you have a meter or test light) to check while its all out.
Ok ill grab a test light and see whats up, weird thing is I was bored and took the multifunction switch apart (not recommended), cleaned all the contacts and put it back together and it still didn't work not even a flicker or anything. I'm gonna test for a bad ground on the emergency brake tonight and see if that's the issue with the switch because the switch seems to be functioning properly. I'm just hoping its not a bad cluster that would suck.
ttocs
Post Whore
you said you installed leds in the cluster right? By chance did you try flipping the led for the bright symbol? Leds are polarized meaning that if you put them in backwards they will not work. Just pull it out, turn it 180 degrees and then push it back in.
I also saw recently where someone showed how they had a bad contact on the harness going to the gauges. There is a piece of plastic that they basically has copper traces glued to it that can come off. Pull the gauge cluster out and inspect where the harness plugs in and and see if any traces are not in the correct place. In that guys case it was just a simple matter of moving it over and then glued it back down if I remember correctly.
I also saw recently where someone showed how they had a bad contact on the harness going to the gauges. There is a piece of plastic that they basically has copper traces glued to it that can come off. Pull the gauge cluster out and inspect where the harness plugs in and and see if any traces are not in the correct place. In that guys case it was just a simple matter of moving it over and then glued it back down if I remember correctly.
Ok so I checked some stuff tonight, The bulb will illuminate when you start the car for about 5 seconds so the bulb works, I took the switch on the ebrake out cleaned the contacts and they were good, put the wires from the switch together still no light and checked all the fuses they were good. I'm stumped it must be a bad wire somewhere but the wires disappear under the carpet. Where do they go?
ttocs
Post Whore
as I said above I would go t the gauges and check the harness connection in the back a well as for anything wrong inside of it. The wire for the brake light goes into a harness that goes across the floor under the front seats over the tranny hump. But I would start where the problem between them is common and look there. There could be a single bad trace on the harness that is shorting both bulbs out.
I pulled the cluster and made sure all my copper lines where in the right spot they were, I never checked the actual harness though that was dumb Ill do that tonight. I also sprayed electric contact cleaner on the connector to the brake reservoir just to be safe as well. My brother has a 94 i may swap out the cluster to see if the cluster is an issue. His cluster is for a 94 auto and mine a 95 5 speed there is no difference right?
I Finally found it!!! After 3 years trying to figure it out, it was so easy. I looked under the car on the driver side and the DRL module was unplugged. I never knew these cars ever had DRL. I sprayed the connections down with electrical contact cleaner and plugged it in. Right away I had my ebrake light and High beam indicator light back.
