the illiumination lights do not come on. We have put in a new dimmer switch. Upon doing so the #18 10 amp fuse blows when you turn the headlamp switch to parking lights on. I put in a 20 amp fuse and when you turn the switch on it sizzles inside the switch. I took it off fast enought to not fry any part of the switch. So we checked the bulbs in the back of the cluster and they are all good. Is there a short in the clust or the wiring down to the fuse panel. We have also checked the dimmer side of the wiring harness on the back of the switch. We get a blue and an orange that are hot. Totaling 3 hots and a ground Thnere should only be one. Could this have anything to do with the radio being after market and the illiumination wires being connected? any ideas???????

 

Very well could be due to the aftermarket radio, try removing that install the old switch and check the fuse.

fuse might have been blown before you changed the switch, that is why they did not work.

not too sure what wires you are looking at, you only named 2 ( and most likely not the full wire color code ) and said there were 3.

Where you on the connector to the back of the main headlamp switch that is to the side of the dimmer dial or on the side with the headlamps ?

The brown wire is routed to fuse #18, and this comes back as Dark Blue w/ white stripe as the input the dimmer dial. The output of the dimmer dial is light blue w/ red, so right away there are at least 2 hots on the dimmer side of the main headlamp switch.

On the headlamp connector side, there is the main power in, parking lamps out, and the headlamp main out ( to the low & high ).

This is with the dimmer dial in the off position for the interior lamps, if that is tuned on, there is another hot circuit on it.

Not too sure where you get there should only be 1.