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Hey Guys and Gals, I am having some eletrical problems with my 1993 subie legacy. When I press on the brakes the brake lights don't light up. When I turn on my headlights the tail lights come on but the brake lights won't light when the brake is pressed. I have already checked the fuses and they are fine. Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to fix this?

P.S. I am having some other eletrical issues but this one is the most important right now.

are the lights burned out? does the STOP LAMP light illuminate?

Subaru got rid of the STOP LAMP light in 92 or 93, so I don't think he has that warning light. But the burnt-out bulbs idea makes sense.

Does the horn work? If not, it's probably the fuse, since the horn and brake lights share a fuse.

Otherwise it's likely to be the switch at the top of the brake pedal.

There's a switch for the brake pedal? I'm lost!! But I CAN vouch for the fact that there used to be a 'stop lamp' light in my gauges, but when I moved to the 92, it wasn't there..
Howcome, though? Isn't something like that important enough that it should be kept around? Were there other measures in place instead, to justify the retraction of the warning?

Yeah, there's a switch at the top of the pedal that is part of the brake light circuit; that's how the light turns on. I think on cruise-control-equipped cars the switch has two sets of contacts and is also used for cruise.

I agree that it's a pretty useful function. Maybe they figured that doubling the number of brake light bulbs (on sedan models, anyway) would offset it. But it was more likely cost cutting.

We also lost a few other nice interior things along the way... the little white dots on the dash vents, the sunroof and trunk lid indicators in the gauge cluster, 4EAT position indicator lights that change color in manual mode, a VHS introduction video, stuff like that.

Maybe removing some of the little things helped the bean counters accept the cost of the facelift.

but they didn't double the amount of brake light bulbs. There's 7 on the 90-91 and 7 on the 92-94. Unless of course you have a turbo. Then there's 4 and 4.

Oh, I didn't realize the 90-91s had two dual-filament bulbs on each side. My mistake.

I have not tested the bulbs nor checked them. All the brake lights are not working, including the third brake light. Not quite sure what the stop light thing is but it does have a fuse. I have checked all the fuses in the fuse panel that could be remotely related to the brakes and they are all fine. I took the lower part of the dash off to check the plug on the brake pedal. There seems to be two plugs; the main one is plugged in but there is another with the same wire colors that is not plugged into anything. I tried looking around the wires and trying to find a matching harness but I could not find one. Can anyone get me a pic of what it is supposed to be plugged in to?

Also, here is a quick run down of all the electrical problems I am having: brake lights don't light, horns don't work, cruise control doesn't work (can't set speed), ac/heater motor does not come on, and the seatbelt light flashes and buzzer doesn't make any noise when uplugging the door seat belts.

use a fuse diagram and swap out the fuses responsible for fresh ones. Sometimes a fuse will test good with a meter, but won't carry current. You also need to remove fuses from the holders to test them properly.

Tomorrow morning when I get off work at 9:30 I will go pick up a bunch of fuses and replaces all the fuses under the hood and in the car. Just to be on the safe side.

Does anyone have any solutions for the plug that goes above the brake? The one that doesn't have anything plugged into it has the same wire colors as the one that is plugged in.

sorry guys, I have been slacking. Been really busy this past week. I will be picking up those fuses tomorrow, Friday. In fact, I am about to go out to my car with a flash light and do an inventory of all the different rated fuses so I will know for certain how many fuses I need to get.

Does anyone have any info in regards to the second plug for the brake switch?

Hey I picked up enough fuses to replace all the ones in the car and under the hood. The replacements will go in sometime during the night while I am supposed to be working. As soon as I replace all the fuses, I will give you guys an update to see if that fixed my problems.

Well, I just finished replacing all the fuses and still a no go. I only checked to see if my brake lights were working. Might go back out there after I warm up a little and test the other stuff.

My friend, Russ, came over to the apartment today and we starting digging around under the dash to find out what my problem was. After a lot of diagnosing, and figuring out how the wiring to the rear lights work; we finally solved the problem. For some reason I am not getting any kind of electrical current to the back of the fuse box to the stop lamp fuse (I think that is the right fuse). So we pretty much hotwired the car to where the brakes lights would work when the car was on. We found the solution when my friend was using the test light to check the harness to the cruise control (the plug I kept asking you guys about). When my friend testing the plug the blower motor for the ac/heat started working, the horn buttons worked, and finally I had brake lights. If I could find where the other half of the plug is for the cruise control maybe I can get my cruise control working again. Anywho, I thought I would give you guys an update. I will probably take a picture of how we ghetto-rigged the lights to work. Let me just say that it is nice to have brake lights and ac/heat once again!