Thread: The Big Day and the little switch

So there we were all dressed up and raring to go..........that was until I put my foot on the brake pedal and hit the start button! Bing - Bing - Bing, and up comes the dreaded yellow triangle on the dash along with a number of warnings about all sorts of items that were, to put it mildly, 'stuffed' or so it seemed.

This was Sunday morning last at 1100hrs. More importantly we were still in the drive of my property by the house. A quick check of things and plug in the IID tool and all the faults were confirmed. Woe is me!

Oh well the local LR service agent also happens to be the RAC folks in a town not too far away. Onto the RAC then. In due course out they come and after a little to do over finding my place (rural property) the rescue or so it seemed was to hand. We got the D4 to restore itself after about 15 minutes shut down. In consultation with the good RAC chap and with a view to heading to the service agent first thing in the morning we resigned ourselves to being a day or two late starting our journey.

All good from my perspective as I was not about to hit the road into a regional area with caravan in tow and vehicle that might not be behaving. I might add that the D4 has 297,000 plus kms on the clock at the moment and it has not let me down previously.

Given that I have owned and driven the D4 from brand new in 2011 I reckon that's not too bad.

So there I was sitting around at home thinking....mmmmmmm.....might this be a brake light switch fault, reckon so! Over to the shed and into the D4 rummage around for my spare switch that I have carried almost since the day I bought the vehicle. Found and installed the switch hit the go button but the faults persisted (No I did not clear them with my IID tool) whats more this time the vehicle dropped to the bump stops. Whats that word they use in the Toyota adds? Oh well back onto the RAC and get the vehicle towed in the morning.

Long story short, after the ignominy of being towed, it turned out I was onto the problem and the service agent had it fixed in no time flat......drove home hooked up the caravan and arrived at my destination one day late.

So the brake light switch had crapped itself and my replacement switch was used (yes I purchased another spare) and I was advised that after fitting same switch I should ensure push the brake pedal down and then hook my foot behind it and pull it back. After which I should then clear the faults and all should be good. OK I will remember that.

Mind you it was good to have my service agent spend a period of time checking that all was well with everything else. Peace of mind as I set sail.

That damned little (FoMoCo Part) switch caused a bit of a problem....but when you think about it how many times since 2011 has that switch been operated........all in all, probably it did a really good job and maybe it should be a service item.....oh I forgot your not supposed to keep the vehicle for that long are you?????

Genuine, $36 delivered. Ordered one and fixed my issue. Having declared myself a mechanical genius, I ordered a 2nd as a travelling spare.

Genuine Ford Falcon/Territory Brake Light Switch. BFIII/FG, SY/SZ. Pedal. 31508510920 | eBay

FYI, original part on left, new part on right.

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