Front brake switch

Guys,
This is killing me. End of last season my front brake light switch started to act up; sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. I put a brembo master cylinder on last year and it worked fine until the end of the season. The brembo m/c has a new brake switch. The switch is normally closed (correct?), meaning the button is pushed in, and when I pull the lever the switch opens. I have a meter and I've been trying to figure this out. The switch works. With key on, I get power to the switch and through the switch when the lever is pulled (full 12V). I get power all the way to the back of the bike where the actual fixture plugs into the harness (full 12V). My wiring harness is brand new from front to back. The tail light works and has always worked, as does the rear brake switch. So, I turn the key on, the tail light comes on (like it should), I step on the rear brake pedal and the brake light comes on (like it should) but when I pull the front brake lever, I get nothing (NOT like it should). The bulb is good, even replaced that to make sure. I rewired the fixture with new wires (the only part of the harness that wasn't new) and tested that with a battery and both filaments light up. I've tried jumping from the front brake switch straight to the brake light fixture with no results.
Heres what I've found. If everything is connected as it should be, with key on, if I check for power at the brown wire connection between the harness and the fixture I get nothing (which is correct) when I pull the brake lever, I get a tiny tiny bit of voltage (which should be 12V +). Now, if I unplug the brown wire at the harness/fixture junction and check for power at the end of that wire, I get the required 12V when I pull the lever.

It seems as though I get a short when the brown wire is plugged in, and the voltage never makes it to the light. I don't know what else to check.
Please help, I'm pulling my hair out.

Thanks,
Ben

I would assume the switch is normally open, meaning no contact until the lever is pulled at which point it closes (makes contact). Regardless I would make up a length of wire with an aligator clip on each end. It will come in handy often. I would remove the wire feeding the harness from the switch and unplug the wire from the tail light and use the jumper to make that connection. If the light works as it should then there is a problem in the harness and it is grounded somewhere between the two. (I think!)

Russ

I'm not to smart when it comes to electrical problems, so I try to think of ways to narrow the problem.

It seems with a couple of lengths of wire - almost any thickness - you could run from battery to switch and switch to brake light. Then brake light to ground. If it works OK, then the switch is good. It seems if the rear brake light and regular tail light work then the wiring at the back end has to be OK.

I suspect the connect into the harness up front you mentioned, but in my scheme of trouble shooting, you keep getting closer and closer to any one part of the system. If one side fails and the other is still working, then narrow the investigation to the not working part and keep getting closer. So if the switch tests OK and you know the back end wiring is OK, you might go from your switch to the back side of the harness connector and test there, etc. Hope that made some sense.

Works for me - YMMV.

Thanks for the help guys. I found it. Turns out there was some "anomaly" in the "brand new" brake switch. I finally took it apart and had to bend a tab a little bit. Must have been some connection issue there. I still don't get it. I know for a fact that I was able to get voltage through that switch. It definitely had continuity. Just goes to show, it was in the last place I would have thought.
Thanks for the effort though.
I just had it out for the first ride of the year to top off the tank. Now I'm out for a more substantial ride.

Ben