2013 brake light

[Bluedog]

Am i the only one on here that has problems with their front brakes applying pressure before the light comes on. From 30 mph down to 0, I can apply enough brake pressure to stop without ever having the brake light activate. My dealer told me that Yamaha has some leeway in activation. While visiting the dealer, we looked at a 2014 FJR on their showroom floor, and my sales man/service manager acknowledged that they could come to a complete stop in traffic without the rear lights coming on. Does anyone else know of this problem? Thanks in advance.

 

[bigjohnsd]

I haven't notoced this but will check mine once I have it off the lift.

 

[G Squared]

Yes. I've noticed it takes more pressure to activate light. Hell, it should be less. This just reminded me to have it checked immediately.

 

[SkooterG]

I have had six FJRs and only my 09 is bad like this. I simply make sure to depress the rear brake pedal when slowing/stopping to get the brake light on. A simple solution that has been working 80,000 miles for me.

A permanent solution that I have been too lazy to do is to drill a small depression in the brake lever where it contacts the brake light switch plunger. Easy does it! Drill too much and your brake light will be on without any brake lever pull.

 

[bluesdog]

My dealer told me that Yamaha has some leeway in activation.

Unacceptable, imo. Brake light is required to illuminate prior to engagement. Imagine if your car or semi-trailer's brake lights didn't come on until after the brakes started slowing!

There may be some variation in lever travel before the brake light comes on, but there shouldn't be any leeway that permits the brakes to operate in advance of the brake lights.

 

[FJRLoonie]

I have found this as well. I have noticed that the cruise will not de-activate until I add some rear brake to the equation unless I'm hard on the front brakes.

 

[mcatrophy]

On my '10, I modified my switch as a way of activating the release of my cruise control without actual braking, wrote it up here. There were other suggestions added in the thread to achieve the same result. I believe the GenIII brake lever and switch is the same as the GenII.

 

[Fred W]

Being a front and rear braker, I have never noticed this before. I wonder is there is a lot of variation in this tolerance from bike to bike? Maybe the switch mounting is not too precise?

The ability to disengage the cruise control (now that I have one) without actual braking has great appeal. I'm going to have to look into this further.

 

[LKLD]

I just tab the clutch to disengage.

 

[ionbeam]

Mebby things have changed for later Gens, but my FSM has a section called "ADJUSTING THE REAR BRAKE LIGHT SWITCH" which I have done to assist my cruise control disengagement point as well as get the light to come on with just a small amount of brake pedal movement. This also has the good/bad affect of causing my rear brake light to come on and stay on with just a tiny amount of brake pivot sticking. All the NERDS like to tell me that my rear brake is sticking when the light comes on

 

[Fred W]

Hey, anytime we NERDS can find even a minor fault in Mr 'beam's situation is cause for a celebration.

 

[art miller]

Like ScooterG, I was schooled to always use both front and rear brakes during normal riding conditions. Never have had anyone tell me my brake lights were not working.

 

[Constant Mesh]

Maybe you could add a bit of air to your front hydraulics. Get more lever travel compressing the bubble.

I added a "cancel" on my Audiovox via a momentary tap of the horn button. The brake lights don't come on, the Audiovox drops out and the "set" speed is retained.

I discovered a momentary input was too brief to cancel the Audiovox. It needed a bit longer pulse, longer than I wanted to provide using the horn button. I used a miniature seal-in relay to sustain the input from the momentary "beep" of the horn.

Moving the brake lever/pedal, or moving the clutch lever didn't seem right for me so I looked for another option -- the horn button.

 

[DeSudet]

My '13's brake light comes on just as the brakes themselves are engaging. My rear comes on just before the brakes start to grip. I need to dig around in there to have them come on just a bit sooner as I've always used my foot for warning cagers behind me that they're either too close or I'm about to maneuver.

 

[RichDoyle]

For the rear pedal switch, this is easily adjusted. For the front switch, if you have this problem it requires some doctoring of the switch plunger. But my '13, FWIW, hasn't shown this behavior.

However, I was having a problem where the front brake and CC release microswitches were in inconsistent states. This was causing the CC to refuse to operate. The fix was to clean up the innards of the front switch with contact cleaner. Maybe something like this would help.

Otherwise, for the front brake lever, the coordination of the CC disengage, stop light engage and actual brake activation is the relationship between the lengths of the brake MC pushrod, the switch pushrod, and the dimensions of the brake lever and MC piston. Maybe if some of these are at the wrong end of manufacturing tolerances it causes this problem. I could also see if some kind of munge were in the "pockets" of the front brake lever or the MC piston where the brake pushrod goes the brake would be engaging early.

 

[ApexGT]

Never had this problem,