brakelights making me insane

[wonderjuizen315]

greetings i seem to be having a bit of a electrical issue involving my brake lights on my 95 318ti,i was hoping someone may be able to shed some light on.When just the key is on the topbar light in the rear hatch comes on and stays on along with both filaments in the double filament bulb in both the passenger side tail light and driver side.When the key is on and the headlight switch is on again both the driver side and passenger double filament tail light bulbs are fully illuminated also the small single filament bulb next to the double filament bulb on the driver side is illuminated and one of the double filaments in the front driver side turn signal is lighting up plus the topbar in rear hatch still fully illuminated.With just the headlight switch on one of the double filaments in the front driver side turn signal is illuminated and one of the double filaments in the driver side taillight along with the small single filament to the right of the double and the passenger side taillight isn't doing anything at all.The turn signals and reverse light work fine.Also whatever happened it blew the illuminater in my head light switch so my dash lights no longer work.... so please if anyone has any idea greatly appreciated.

[pdxmotorhead]

Broken headlight switch? Internally...??

Dave

[wonderjuizen315]

see i replaced the head light switch and the brake light switch underneath the dash and im still having this problem

[pdxmotorhead]

I posted a note on another thread, check the dual filament bulbs in the tail lights, I had one blow and the piece of filament shorted to the other and cause all manner of lighting insanity.

Dave

[wonderjuizen315]

all new double filament bulbs im kinda leaning toward a bad relay

[pdxmotorhead]

There is a "lighting control box" that handles a lot of the front and rear lighting circuits. There are also a couple of weird fuse relationships int he E36 , for instance if one of hte brake light fuses blows on my car the starter wont work...

Cheers
Dave

[wonderjuizen315]

Where would i find this said lighting control box?

[wonderjuizen315]

alright well i went out there with a multimeter and this is what i discovered the taillights on the passenger side do not work at all.Also if i turn the key on and the headlight switch on with the brake light switch unplugged naturally the brake lights dont light up,but if i plug the brakelight switch in and hit the brakes it illuminates the brake lights (both sides including rear windowbar)and they stay on unless i unplug the switch again now could that mean a bad switch.i am new to bmw so im kinda scratching my head