Dash lights will not turn off!! 72 dart

67Dart273 said
Don't forget, Mattox the high charge problem could be right at the alternator---the infamous wrongly configured field connections

Anyhow the lights...........Only thing I can think of is that you overheated the harness with the charge problem, and it internally melted some wiring and crossed wiring

It is IMPORTANT that you understand how this works

Power for the instrument lamps in the headlight switch comes from the tail/ park part of the switch. First make certain those are coming on/ off properly with the switch.

That circuit feeds power TO the dash dimmer control

Does the instrument dimmer (twist the headlight switch knob) have any effect?

Now the dimmer control feeds it's output, on tan, down TO the instrument fuse in the fuse box. This is the ONLY fuse that works this way. From that fuse, ALL dash dimmer controlled lighting is fed out on ORANGE wiring

Next pull the INST fuse. This is normally located at one end of the fuse box.

If that kills the lights, then you either have a harness "cross," or some modification by you or others in the harness has caused a problem

Thanks very much for the reply I believe that's what happened with the alternator because I took it out and got it tested and it failed every test, got a new 1 and the high charging is gone, before I got it tested I put a multi meter on the back of the alternator and it was reading 18 volts as well directly off the alternator, but the high current issue is fixed now I also put in a new regulator too after that happened

I will have to check all this I can pull the switch in and out and control the park ights and the headlights like normal

The dimmer has no effect, after the 1st time it happened I was able to turn the dial and everything went back to normal for a couple days but now they are back to being stuck on and it has no effect, I will have to go out and try pulling the fuse next thats the only thing I haven't done other then pulling the cluster and inspecting that