Wiring Experts - Brake Wear Indicator Light

[scottofksu]

Having upgraded my 65's front suspension to 73-87 HD disc brakes, I ordered a new set of pads. The new pads came with wiring for brake wear indicator circuits. This got me thinking... How hard would it be to create a system that lights a bulb on my cluster in one of the unused indicator areas when the brake pads become worn (my cluster is from a C-60, so there are spots for tandem axle indicators, or something like that)?

I'm assuming that all the wiring in the pad does is ground a circuit or something... I know it's a long shot, but does anyone have an idea about how to go about this?

[markeb01]

I’ve never seen brake pads with wiring in them, but a brake wear sensor sure sounds like a nice idea. It should be rather simple to wire them up if you can test and confirm they ground the circuit when worn down.

I’d initiate the circuit on the ignition side of the fuse panel (only hot with the key on), run the wire to an indicator light on the dash and on to the brake pad to complete the ground side of the circuit. If it’s that simple, this would be a nice upgrade for a lot of old vehicles.

[scottofksu]

Having done some research, it seems that these ARE rather simple systems., as you've suggested!

To whit, here is the first patent for such a system from the 1970s, as filed by Mercedes:

http://www.google.com/patents/US3825891

In a bit I'll upload what the wiring looks like. I think the first step will to be to cross reference what modern vehicles my brake pads are also for so I can purchase the appropriate connector, wiring, and, perceivible, the entire system. From there I can splice and wire in the appropriate bulb and socket to fit my gauge cluster.

[chevyrestoguy]

Like Mark said, you could make it a pretty simple deal. You will need to decide which caliper you want to use as your wear indicator and bring the wire from the inside of the truck to it. I have found that the firewall plug on the passenger side has a couple of unused contacts in the bulkhead connector, and you could probably bring the wire through one of them for a nice clean look. You could use either the Tandem Lock or the Overspeed light ports in the cluster for your illumination. I think I have a spare harness that I could chop off a bulb pigtail for you if you need one. I just recently did something similar and used the Overspeed light as my lockup indicator for my 700r4. I'm using a manual lockup switch, and although I can listen to the engine and determine if I'm locked or not, I decided that I wanted to get fancy and mess with a buddy of mine who thinks that the idea is overkill.