On inspection I noticed the rear brake light on my '06 Sportster is not working with either the foot pedal and the hand lever. I checked the fuses and they look good. I am looking through the service manual but I am not finding anything in troubleshooting. Forum search hasn't helped either. Any advice?

 

Burned out bulb?

 

Have you thought to check the bulb???

 

Bulb is good. Tail light works but brake light does not. Inspected the bulb and filaments look good but put a new one in anyway.

 

You can test with a voltmeter... the test light is simpler

front...

rear...
likely the rear portion of the bike since there were recent changes are back there and the brake light is not on constantly. front switch failure cause light to stay on all the time.

you can double check the switch by setting an a voltmeter to audible connecting to both sides of the switch and pressing the rear brakes.






location of rear (on your 2004-20013 style)....

 

I say you need a new brake light switch located behind the rear brake master cylinder. Do a google or youtube search. Pretty straight forward.

 

Thanks for posting this. When I did a YouTube search I watched that first video but not the second one. I am going to try jumping the rear switch

 

If the front brake lever doesn't activate the brake light and diagram above shows a switch at the front brake, seems replacing the rear brake switch would be down the list of possibilities. Chasing electrical problems can be a PIA, at least it's off all the time while your trying to find the problem. Can you do a continuity test to determine if there's a broken wire ?

 

updated the post

 

I tested the rear switch connector with a test light. When I probe the terminals both terminals light up the test light. I changed the taillight out for the heck of it and put an LED on. I think I can see the issue now. It appears the brake light is lit up full time which tells me it's the front switch at lever?