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