Hi I own a 2004 E250 that wont crank and wont start. I recently had realized my brake lights were not working. I checked the fuse #11 and the relay and both seemed fine. I replaced the switch by the pedal and still no luck. After watching a video where a guy went through some common problems with the brake light he found out a loose wire in the column was the culprit. Somewhere between replacing the switch and opening the column up it decided it wasnt going to start, Any help is greatly appreciated TIA

 

Before replacing anything, it is always a good move to check all the fuses. If you would like to do some simple checking a test light is a good investment.
You just clip the ground clip to a good ground connection and proceed to touch the pointed probe end to any wire/place power should be present and the light tells you if you have power there. It is a very fast way to check fuses without pulling them out to look at them. You just touch the pointed probe to the opening on the top of a fuse . If it has power to light the test light on one side of the top of the fuse it must have power on the other side of the fuse also.. You can check all the fuses in less than a minute and go from there
.Many times electrical problems are not physically visable , but you can't fool the test light. Either power is there or not, very easy to do.
From there you can verify if there is power coming to the stoplight switch and if power is coming out when the pedal is depressed without removing anything..
These are very simple and easy tests to do and will save you loads of time and trouble. Where you go from one step to another depends on if you have power present.

The idea here is to prevent you from tearing apart ares when it may not be necessary , plus replacing properly working parts.
Many times getting into an area replacing a good part creates problems that were not there originally.
So instead of working "Blind" , good idea to get off to a good start.

 

Address the worst problem first. Brake lights are not that. You need to find why the starting system will not crank. You can verify that power from the ignition switch is making it to your starter's solenoid. just to rule out those It all seemed to begin when you had the steering column apart and that's where I would begin. Some ignition switches have a positioning adjustment or maybe the connective parts which actuate the switch have an issue.