8thairforce,

Poking around in this forum revealed this...your dome light is powered on one side and is grounded through a rheostat in the light switch on the other side. This would mean that the rheostat supplying the variable ground is defective, or that the wire is finding ground before it makes it to the switch. It would seem to me that the lamp holder proper must be insulated in the assembly and shouldn't rely on the entire fixture to be insulated from the body.

If you can identify the dome light ground wire at the light switch, you can disconnect it, and if the light goes out it means the rheostat is bad...if it doesn't, it would indicate a short to ground in the wiring somewhere.

Stuart