Tail lights remain on

[Spawn]

I just encountered something a little strange on my truck.  I found that the tail lights were remaining on, even though the light switch was in the off position.  I confirmed that it was off as the headlights weren't on and neither were the front park lights.  Just to be safe, I pulled the light switch to turn on all of the lights and then shut them off.  This made no change to the tail lights.  I then thought that perhaps the brake pedal switch might be causing the issue, so I tried pressing and releasing the brake a few times to see if that would get the tail lights to turn off, but still no change.  The only thing that I could think of was to start pulling fuses to see if that would solve the lights staying on.  When I pulled the fuse that was on the bottom right (it was a 15A rectangular style fuse that had two cylindrical copper or brass leads that plugged into the fuse block) my tail lights were no longer on.  I'm not sure why this would be, and I was hoping that someone here could explain why this would happen?  I understand that pulling the fuse breaks the circuit to the lights, but what I don't understand is why the tail lights themselves were on when everything was off.  Has anyone ever encountered something like this before?

[datsunfreak]

There's a rubber (or plastic) plug in the pedal itself that trips the brake light switch. Sometimes they wear out or break off. 

 

Reach your hand up in there and physically compress the brake light switch with your finger and see if it goes off? 

[datsunfreak]

Unless of course you're already sure it's the tail light on and not the brake light. 

[Spawn]

I'll have to check it tomorrow with another person looking at it, but I'm pretty certain that it was just the tail lights and not the brake light.  I was unfortunately alone when I noticed the issue and couldn't obviously check if they were lighting up from the brake switch or just the park lights/tail lights.

[ggzilla]

Very common for it to break into little pieces

 

 

Nissan comes in black, clear or green.

[DatWifey]

I had this same issue just a week or so ago.  It looked like it was just the taillights stuck on, but it was a shitty brake switch under the brake pedal that we jerry-rigged back together a couple years ago when we bought the truck and never swapped out.  Took all of a couple minutes at most to put in another that we had on-hand.  Definitely get someone else to just look at the lights while you depress the brake.  Could save a lot of time and headache if that's all that it is.

[datzenmike]

If it was really the tail lights, the rear side and license plate would be lit also.

 

The brake light is much brighter and turns off and on with the flasher or 4 way.

[spottedog]

This happened to me, put a short 6mm or 7/16 bolt in the hole, nut on the inside where the plastic nub was. Done deal, Ratsun cheap and easy :thumbup:

[banzai510(hainz)]

I JB weled a penny so the swtich can hit it can shut off

don't need 2 people to figure this one out.

[ggzilla]

It only takes seven people