86 Toyota Corolla, rear lights

Alright so heres the deal...

The car has a dash light designed to tell you when anyone of your rear lights are out, this light is stuck on in a customers car, yet there are no lights out in te rear,  I have checked the wiring behind the dash, rear light wiring is fine and all the wiring inside the loom seems okay as well. I'm not sure how this system works at all, if anyone knows how it works / what might be at fault. Or even both would be great! I would be muchly appreciative, Thanks guys!

I've seen many times when the light is on, but all the lights work. The cause is just an incorrect bulb in one of your rear lights.

When you say the light is "stuck", do mean it's on all the time whether or not your foot is on the brake, or if the parking lights aren't on.

If the bulbs are correct (they will fit, but the resistance will be different causing the light to come on) you may have a bad lamp outage module.

You will need to locate it, unplug it and see if the light goes out. If the light stays on, your problem is elsewhere.

I checked the wattage of the bulbs are they are correct with the Manufacturer specs.

The light is on from the time the car switches on, even when no lights should be on *daytime running*

I replaced the module as the second thing after checking all the bulbs. Still stuck on.

Whilst I was typing this response the customer has called and told me of an "incident" apparently after the husband installed the CD player he blew several fuses and had smoke pour out from under neath the dash. I now think the most likely cause is the (+) lead to this light is now shorted out against a (+) ignition fed lead somewhere..but I didn't see anything....wheres my leadlight?

Will let you know

I hate working Saturdays, would much rather be with my family right now..grrrr

Ok, dropped the fuse box down and found a melted mess, not sure how I missed it earlier but there it is.....

Not sure how to fix this problem, the customer is short on money and the car obviously needs a rewire, the mess is too big to just replace some of the lengths and I'm worried where else is melted as well.

I've got the car for a couple of days while the customer has a think about it, any suggestions?

The hardest part was explaining to the customer that although the problem is only in the light, there is a potential for a huge fire problem, she now thinks I'm trying to rip her off. eek

Geepherder, that was one of the things I checked! it was fine.....this problem is all in the mess behind the fuse box now. this Dash light isn't hooked upto the dimmer switch.

The car just basically needs a complete new loom, not sure if it is worth it or not though. It's a job that I can't let my apprentice do and I don't have the time. but I can't let the car go out in it's current situation even if it has been like this for 6 months now. It's just an accident waiting to happen. I guess I have some overtime coming up. I have a feeling that I might just have to do a patch job and I hate patch jobs.

I've priced a new loom for this thing and it's nearly 500 bucks, I think it would be cheaper for the customer if my app and I made up a new loom, I've got the specs on the loom. Besides it would be a great lesson for him as well.

I've never thought it would be hard teaching an apprentice, I forget occaisonally that he doesn't know what he is doing and that he needs my help, then he infuriates me with what I call stupid questions, it's not till later that I have realised that it wasn't a stupid question to him and I have to go back and to apologise to him. I guess I forget that not everybody knows you can't always cut antenna cable down to size and that its tuned to a certain length.

Maybe I need to create a forum post about this and get some help what do you think? I've babbled way too long. I think I need to go home, it's past midnight and I'm still plugging away in the bay!