Club 80-90 Forums

My 83/84 Westy has no parking break warning light. Is this normal for early vans?
I had a look through the bentley PDF on here and it shows a parking warning light present on earlier air cooled vans its no 73 on the schedule

Am I missing something obvious?

No switch, or cables present, but oddly does have the red plastic diffuser on the binnacle but no light behind it

I could really do with getting one fitted as I recently had an incident in France where I forgot to release the handbreak & drove several miles before I noticed, The rest of the holiday was an interesting drive....

Now being back at home & rebuilding the rear brakes. I want to sort this out

As an addition, Looks like there is no brake fluid level sensor either.

I'm pretty sure they all have the handbrake warning light - it must have fallen down the back of the dashboard or something. Not all have brake fluid level warning.

Check for the switch on the handbrake, look what colour the wire attached is - I think its grey with a green stripe. The other end will terminate in a connector along with (IIRC) a black wire

I have a 1983 van (not a Westy).
One of the first wasserboxers.
I can confirm that my early van does NOT have a warning light on the dash for the handbrake nor fluid level.

There is no facility to mount the switch on my early handbrake lever.

I had to fit a later brake lever to my van so that I could have a working light.

Also - for a working fluid level warning light, you need the correct fluid cap on the fluid reservoir.
Typically the van comes with a plain cap without an integral switch.

Not sure if your '84 Westy is the same.

The give-away would be a wire halfway along the handbrake lever mechanism,
And a cap with two wires on it for the master cylinder reservoir.
And the red plastic light unit in the slots above the main light switch.

If everything is there, then consider a blown 286 capless bulb in the back of the warning light.

I seem to remember posts about this years ago - general consensus was that early vans didn't have the handbrake switch at all IIRC.

Thanks for the replies gents

I can confirm that there is no switch on the hand break lever or any wires

The cap on the brake fluid reservoir is just a cap, no sensor or float

There is a bit of red plastic where the light should be.

I've been shopping this morning & have a warning light & hand break with switch on its way

I am going to need the connector for the back of the warning light (unless i can directly solder some wires to the back of the thing)

I see brickwerks do a cap with sensor so if I might as well get that working too

Just seemed odd that in the Bentley manual it has the wiring there in the air cooled versions (maybe it was a US requirement?)

Mine is an August 1983 and does have the light. 
Maybe its  because its a Caravelle?

it will be a market dependent thing, whichever country the OPs Westie went to when new didn't have brake warning lamp as standard, in that year, for that spec of vehicle, some dependent on law some dependent on the company selling the vehicle; if not having it made the vehicle 10DM cheaper then that's what the importer chose, maybe choosing instead to spend the 10DM in part to fit chrome hub caps or those nice wheel trims instead because people buy with their eyes, and shiny things sell, hidden stuff doesn't

My 83 Joker had no handbrake or fluid warning lights - just a blanking plate.  Just got a 1986 Club Joker and this is exactly the same.  This one certainly spent its live in Germany as I have the paperwork up to when it was imported.