Hello all, new here... And I recently inhereted this car from a friend... It needs lots of work... And should be a fun project... So this will probably be the first of many posts...

I have an interesting brake light prediciment... The 3rd brake light is lit intil the brake pedal is pressed... Then the 3rd brake light turns off and the others are lit...

If someone has an idea I'm taking suggestions... I'm not exactly sure where to start with the electrical system... And I don't want to let the smoke out...

Thanks...

 

I guess I didn't post this in the right forum...

I found the problem to be a short in the wiring.... Where the hatch back passes the cables thru to the frame... Pulled some cabling and a little solder and heat shrink job... all done...

 

Can you give a more detailed description - this is exactly the problem I'm having and it's driving me nuts! I've searched a ton of different boards and yours is the only post that matches my problem!

 

I'm not sure how the wiring is setup for a civic, but with the integra if you look from behind the car at the hatch, the wiring is in the upper right corner... There is a "protective" cable cover around the wires where they pass thru from the hatch to the frame... Here the 3rd light and the wiper cables pass thru... I had to remove the "protective" cable cover and inspect... There was not much wire to work with... But after A bit of pulling I could see that most of the cables were frayed... I had to pull the interior decor strip from the hatch to give me enough cable to solder and heat shrink it back together...

It was a perplexing bitch to find the root causes... But after talking with other gen1 Teg owners this is a common problem...

The other thing to look at is the brake switch, make sure it is wired properly... A volt meter will tell you this... On an 86 Teg it is located at the pedal... Such that the switch unlatches when the brake is pressed away from it...

Beyond that, get a volt meter w/ continuity checking ability and have lots of patience... Trace it from the source (switch) back to the light... It is one of 2 things, the switch or a short...

That's about the best advice I can give...

 

Thanks for the post - that's really cool of you. let you know how I do...

 

FIXED IT! Exactly where the hatch opens and the wires on the passenger side go up from the frame into the hatch. From there the wires go to both sides of the rear window defrost, rear window wiper, and the third brake light. So right where the wires come out, they are exposed but encased in a plastic black housing. The black rubber cover did not have any damage so I never really suspected it but took the gamble to cut it away. The actual wires within had damage, one ground was broken completely while two colored wires had parts exposed and touched - the opening and closing of the hatch must have pinched the wires together and eventually worn away the plastic coating. Then the defrost line and third brake light line touched together so my defrost button would cause the third brake light to go on and hitting the brakes caused the light to go off. Wrapping some tape around the exposed wires and soldering the broken ground back together did the trick. Everythings working and I'll just have to keep an eye on if the hatch closing will again pinch the wires.

 

you cut it? the rubber?