DeTomaso Mailing List: March 98, Message #65
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In answering a question from someone else about their brake pedal coming too far back, I discovered that the Pantera has (or at least was suppose to have) a brake pedal stop bracket. This stop bracket appears to be redundant in that the brake pedal height is controlled by the push rod adjustment and the stop bracket is to be adjusted with 3/32 to 1/8 inch CLEARANCE. It would seem that this is a natural for a mechanical brake light switch with the possibility of merely removing the stop adjustment bolt, and screwing in a metric stop light switch. Anybody try this? Ted (Vader) Mitchell http://home1.gte.net/tmitch/pe.htm http://home1.gte.net/tmitch/chpie.htm http://home1.gte.net/tmitch/index.htm -----Original Message----- From: Thomas Padula <tjpadula@netcom.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <detomaso@realbig.com> Date: Monday, March 02, 1998 1:17 PM Subject: Re: Need to know sometime in 1999! >Ted wrote: >> Pressure type brake light switches are bad news. They can leak, >> catastrophically fail causing brake failure, and also require a certain >> pressure before activating giving the motorist behind you less warning >> (sometimes a very light brake application won't even turn on the brake >> lights). > >Exactly the situation on my car when I bought it. The brakes worked fine, but >I discovered that the brake lights took a firm push before they would light. > >When I got the car home the evening that I bought it, I pulled into my >driveway, and slowing for a sharp turn, I noticed that I didn't notice >the usual red reflection off the next-door neighbor's house that I >ordinarily saw with my daily driver. (The way things are arranged, the >brake lights can reflect to cast a reddish hue on my house wall, as the >headlights of the car point around the side of the house and the wall is >in darkness.) > >Anyway, a few simple tests showed that I did indeed have to be executing >a rather strong stop before the brake lights would come on. This would not do. > >The first mod I made to the car was the installation of a brake-pedal- >lever actuated brake light switch. I made a simple bracket and set a >normally-closed switch in it where it is held pressed when the pedal is >all the way up. I ran the wires through a grommet into the front trunk >and tapped the stock brake light wiring there. A bit of adjustment to the >bracket, and the lights came on when applying enough pressure to move >the pedal but not quite engage the brakes. > >I hate it when I'm behind a car with no brake lights, and people tailgate >me enough (in traffic, anyway) trying to figure out what make the car is. >I'd prefer to give as much stoplight warning time as I can. So, check out >how much pressure it takes for your brakelights, you might be unpleasantly >surprised, too. > >-tom >'73 euro GTS #6382 >