BRAKE LIGHTS FOR A BOX SALOON

When I bought my 1932 Box it came with a brake light switch bolted under the floor and physically connected to the braking system, but with no brake lights nor wiring! I was told to remove all this by a MOT garage, as the car would be failed on the basis that this nonstandard feature was inoperative. I have long time been dreaming of reconnecting this, and since Vince Leek had fitted ‘pork pie’ rear lights when he refettled the braking system (and other stuff), I now had the necessary sockets into which brake light bulbs could be fitted – two sockets in each ‘pork pie’, so that they will be twice as bright as the rear light. I have recently replaced all external light bulbs with LEDs (6 volt) and it was easy to deploy more of these for the brakes – but needed connection. Getting the front to back wire feed threaded though was a bit fiddley but achieved eventually. I connected the new light sockets side to side in pairs using motorcycle type 4mm bullet connectors, and all of these to the single front to back feed. The existing earth return was improved by Vince Leek earlier, and seems good.
I bought a modern spring-loaded off-on switch to replace the one that was originally fitted, but the plastic casing of this new one cracked as I bolted it to the floor – so I cleaned up the earlier one and lubricated its action – it has a copper section in an insulating rod which slides when pulled via the external spring attached to the brake system to make electrical contact between two copper ‘fingers’ inside the switch, sprung loaded to the ‘off’ position.
Connection to the brake system was done by a short length of 2mm diameter flexible stainless wire rope with an eye at the rearward end (for the switch spring to hook onto) and looped around the brake rod further forward ahead of a clamp on the rod.

The switch itself is bolted to the floor, making sure that the pull of the connecting spring is in line with the action of the sliding rod in the switch.
Power comes via a new fuse box which has ‘always on’ and ‘on with ignition’ feeds. I chose to wire the brake lights via ‘always on’, and have installed a control switch on the dashboard that gives me ‘auto on’, ‘off’, and ‘on’ – the ‘off’ setting is in case the system sticks on, and also to ensure that the handbrake doesn’t keep the brake lights on when parked. The ‘on’ setting is so that I can always produce a definite emergency ‘hey – I am here!’ signal – also as a reversing illumination – albeit in red light and therefore actually illegal! The blue light in the picture is a high beam tell-tale made necessary by the intensity of the ‘projector’ LED headlamp bulbs. The internal picture of the floor shows the wiring to the switch and my recently installed battery cut-out in the battery positive to earth cable.
Soon I will install a telltale LED on the dashboard to indicate when the brake lights are on, for my peace of mind. Richard Palmer DA7C