Parking brake light on when brake is disengaged.

The parking brake light on my dash stays on no matter if my parking brake is engaged or disengaged. I crawled under the dash and it seems like the light is triggered by a switch. When the parking brake is off it pushes the switch n, when the parking brake is on the switch is pushed out. There is only on wire going into that switch so i am assuming the switch grounds the wire or doesn't depending is switch is on or off...

Now I am assuming the switch is bad. Since even if I manually press or the switch the light stays on...

Does anyone had the same issue?

 

Check your brake fluid. That's the other thing that will activate the light on the dash.

 

x2

 

Hmmm now that makes sense... My brake fluid is low...

I <3 TW...lol

 

If yer brake fluid is low then you probabaly have another problem.
Take a look inside the brake drums and check for a leaking wheel cylander to start.

 

May not be true. Your fluid will go down a bit when your pads where down.

 

I don't think it would go down so far to cause the light to come on. MY wife has been known to run the brake pads down to metal on metal contact on her car without a light coming on. Hopefully 05 redtaco will let us know.

 

It all depends on how much fluid was added after the last brake job. Some guys top it all the way up, some just to the middle line, some just barely above minimum.

My last company truck did this, I added fluid, two months later the light came on again. Ended up having both calipers and wheel cylinders replaced. A year later after I passed the truck down to the new guy, the light came on again. New guys weirds out over it and takes the truck to the mechanic, despite me telling him about all the brake work already done. Mechanic adds fluid, light stays off for the next year or so until the boss sold the truck. So it can go either way. It's prudent to check it out if you do your own work, but it's unlikely to fail suddenly, so might be worth topping off and monitoring the level before paying for a brake inspection.

 

My pads are gone as said above when pads wear down fluid level goes down. Bought some $40 pads from oreilly and installing them tomorrow.

 

Pads installed. Light is off. Brakes are somewhat soft... I don't know if they are supposed to be like that. All I did was take calipers off spindle, compressed pistons and replaced pads. I wonder if i should bleed the brakes. I like my brakes firm not soft.

 

Yea you should definitely bleed them now. You may have agitated some air bubbles and pushed them into the ABS block. When I press the pistons back in the caliper I will open the bleeder so that I'm not forcing fluid back up the lines. Do a good bleed on them. If they are still softer than what you like I would suggest having the ABS block bled out by using a scanner "Snap-On Brick". Hopes this helps.

 

a bleed will help, but the pads also need to fully bed with the rotors. the pedal feel wont be back to normal until they are worn in a little.

 

Good to know there's more than one function that triggers the dash brake light. I have heard from several reliable sources that the difference between the full and low marks on the master cylinder is approximately how much fluid it takes to run down a set of front pads. Probably not a coincidence.

I bleed the brakes at every brake service, because it's usually about 4-5 years in between. Seems like good timing to me, you don't want to keep the same brake fluid in the system for a decade.

 

^^
THIS!

After couple days of driving the brake pedal feels great! Light is off and fluid reservoir is almost full! Mind I didn't add any fluid just changed pads. So far i am happy with the $40 pads from O'reillys, they are quiet... I will see how long they last...

 

glad it worked out for you. It would be a good idea to still flush the fluid someday if you can, since i'm sure the same fluid has been in there for years

 

The pads were worn to the pt where the fluid level was low enough to turn on the light? You might want to check your rear shoes too!

 

Naw....rear shoes last forever. Most of the braking is done in the front.

 

^^ I think this is what happened to me ^^

I changed my front pads, my ABS light turned on. I left it like this because I hate the ABS on this truck

Later on, my axle seals started to leak into my rear brake drums and they were drenched with gear oil. Eventually my e-brake stopped working from all the gear oil.

I replaced my axle seals, drums, cleaned it free from gear oil, then bled my rear brake fluid (also changed my rear brake lines at the same time). Now my e-brake works, but my e-brake light never turns off.

So now my e-brake and ABS light stays on.

What do I do?

(btw, I have a 6speed, so I have the hand brake lever)

 

bump