Get a load of this. So I assumed incorrectly that that crappy taped connection was the brake lights circuit so I unwrapped it and then discovered that that was actually the tail light circuit.
So I had to make a quickie repair on that, having already decided that the entire rear half of the vehicle needs to be rewired after looking at all that junk under there.
Anyway all the tugging and yanking and messing around with the wires and connections under there got the brake light circuit working again without having to disconnect or rewire any temporary connections..
So now at some point in the future, hopefully near future but I don't have time with so many other things going on I'm going to run new tail light wires and new brake wires.
And of course the idiot that did this work in the past left no slack in the lines. They're just pulled taut and strung all over the place instead of tucked neatly in the frame rail out of the way of everything else.
So in a way I guess it's good that the brake lights didn't work for me this morning because now it's going to force me to do more work that I don't have time for