Don't know how fluid would cause you to "wrestle". Oh, well...if it works, who am I to argue?
First of all - Have you found the Chassis Manual here for your car? There are schematics in there, troubleshooting instructions, it's pretty thorough.
If the brake lights aren't working - assuming everything is still in place and you have a voltmeter or test light - that's not TOO hard to troubleshoot.
Assuming the fuse is good (
) and you've checked to make sure that the light bulbs aren't just burned out or the sockets corroded...
There should be a hydraulic pressure switch near the master cylinder - disclaimer: might need key on, I can't tell from the schematic if brakes are "always hot" - and one side of that switch should be 12v. Then when the brake is pressed, it should conduct 12v through the switch.
If you don't have 12v at the switch at all, go back to the fuse panel & start looking there. If you do have 12v coming in but the switch doesn't send 12v out, be happy, that's an easy fix. If you have 12v out of the switch, then start to sweat. Next place the brake signal goes is to the turn signal switch, which toggles the rear lights between turn and brake. THAT...gets ugly.
Hopefully it's something easy! Burned-out bulbs, corroded sockets or contacts...something simple.
Horn - MIGHT be easy to troubleshoot also. If you can find the horn relay (should be a little box on the left fender skirt, under the voltage regulator), there should be 2 heavier and 1 smaller wires connected to it. Jump the small wire to ground - if the horns blow, the horn circuit is OK, it's something in the "horn button" side. If it doesn't - post back, someone here will have an idea.
If it does honk - I *think* your car actually has the tan wire (the smaller wire) accessible where it goes into your steering column inside the car, and I think there's a connector there. If you ground that wire there, if it honks, you know the issue is with the button in the steering wheel. And you can always bypass the steering wheel with a pushbutton on the dash to get by - just ground the horn trigger and it should honk. If it doesn't, then there's a disconnect between the interior wiring and the horn relay trigger.
