Brake Lights Won't Shut Off!
 

First post here, so hello everyone!

Ok, so I have a 1998 Dakota 3.7L V6 5 speed with 138k original miles.

I hit a big pothole while hitting my brakes and blew a seal or something in my MC, so I replaced my booster and MC, bled everything, test drove it, working great I think. It stills feels a little softer than it used to be, but maybe that's in my head. THEN I noticed that my brake lights won't shut off. I'm not talking about an instrument cluster light, I'm talking about my rear brake lights.

It was late, so I quickly googled my issue and came up with either a bad switch or something to do with the rod thru the firewall not allowing the pedal to come all the way up now. IDK if its the switch because it was working fine before and I disconnected my battery while working on my truck.

Does anyone have an idea? Tomorrow I plan to pull the clip from the booster rod and pull the pedal up to see if that shuts off the brake lights, but if the new booster is the issue, how do I fix that? The rod coming thru the firewall isn't adjustable. IDK, I just hope I don't have to unmount that thing again, it sucks.

I appreciate any help. Thanks for reading!

Oh, side note. My clutch fluid reservoir was damn near empty. I didn't notice when I bought it a few months ago and just filled it tonight. After test driving, the fluid level went down about 3/4", so I refilled. The reservoir would be this low for what reason? Leaking clutch slave or master? Any help on this would be awesome too! I highly doubt the previous owner ever filled the clutch fluid. He didn't seem like the handy type, and he owned my truck for over 10 years prior to selling it to me.

Night guys!

-Eric

Yes, the brake light switch is a simple plunger that breaks the circuit when the pedal comes all the way up. You should be able to see it, and if the pedal arm isn't hitting it, push the plunger in by hand to verify it still works.

Possibly, while you were bleeding the brakes, the pedal went down too far and the pushrod got hung up in the booster. Let's hope not. That's all I can think of.

FYI, you should be able to 'upgrade' to the 2001-2004 booster. It's much smaller. If you do have to go that route.

Re: clutch fluid, it's obviously leaked out somewhere. Monitor. The clutch master and clutch slave are a sealed unit and must be replaced as a pre-bled assembly. Some folks have cobbled their own together, but it's a female dog to bleed.

Yes be smart and get the all in one sealed master/slave clutch assembly. Many on this forum have tried to use the older pre 98 assembly with problems they never get it bleed 100%.

Thanks for the advice. Turns out that I must have knocked the switch loose somehow. It wasn't secured to the mounting bracket when I checked it this morning. So happy that it wasn't the booster rod.

As far as the clutch master/slave, thanks for the heads up on that! I'm gonna watch it for a week or two and see what happens.

Clutch question: I think this is the original clutch with 138k on it. It that normal for these trucks? I'm the 3rd owner, and the 2nd owner had it for 10 years and told me he has never replaced the clutch. Just trying to figure out if that repair is in my near future. Thanks again!

How long the clutch lasts depends upon the driver and type of driving. If stop and go, it won't last nearly as long as all highway.

On mine, I had to replace the clutch at about 120k due to the release bearing grenading. The disc itself was fine but I wasn't about to do that job again.

My clutch started slipping at around 100K at the 10 year mark but I'm a little rough on my clutch. Last year I rebuilt my engine the 2.5 and replaced the clutch at the same time it still looked good though.