Help needed - brake lights stay on when truck off

[20stone]

Howdy all -

I am new to this forum (and this truck) and have a quick question regarding how to diagnose and fix a problem that just popped up - The brake lights and the red bed light stay on when the truck is off (including the headlights), and my current fix is unhooking the battery. Help in diagnosing and fixing would be greatly appreciated

Background
The truck is my father-in-law's old 1995 1500 4x4. It has hardly any miles (32K) but has sat in the sun every day of it's life...in Texas. I am sure none of you can guess what happened to the dash....

I bought and started to install an LMC dash cap. My helper wasn't to careful in pulling it out of the truck, and the rest of the dash exploded. Next step, junk yard dash, which, in addition to being pretty beat up and grimy, had all the wires cut.

Earlier today I transplanted the old wiring harness onto my "new" (200K mile junkyard) dash, and I only have two issues:

• The brake lights stay on even when the truck is off/keys out/light switch off (kind of a big deal)
• The dash gear indicator doesn't line up, and doesn't seem to have the adjustment room to get it right (no big deal)

Help on diagnosing would be awesome.

TIA

PS - I did also transplant the cluster. I mean, how many of these only have 32K?

 

[20stone]

Fixed!

It turns out a critical piece of the brake light switch (behind the brake pedal) had broken off. Easy fix.