Thank you for the response, problems not solved and I'm open to any method (wouldn't know very much if I wasn't)
so I'll start at the beginning and finish at the end.
I noticed while cleaning the grounds on the fuel tank sending unit that the wires for the dome light where chewed through. I followed what was left of them and it seemed pretty straight forward.
I soldered some wire to what was left of the plain/ribbed wired at the light and to the ends of the plain/ribbed wire at the plug that is below the fuse block.(I followed the wires past that up to the switch and they were in good condition and followed the wiring diagram.
Once I finished that I put in an LED bulb. It lit up the second I put it in. I went to the switch thinking I left it on but it was in the off position (rotated all the way to the left).
I then flipped the LED bulb around thinking I had crossed the wires somewhere along there and it stayed dark the whole time.
I then tried a regular bulb, It stayed lit up with switch in off position and turned off when the switch was turned.
next I cut the wire I had previously soldered and swapped it around to no avail. Same results.
Then I grounded out the plain wire, with the regular bulb and it was on in all positions with some flickering as I rotated the switch back and forth.
that confused me so I put it all back together according to the diagram and just left the switch in the on position to keep the light off ( I was using the LED at this time because it was much brighter than the regular bulb and I was using that to read my wiring diagram).
the next morning my battery was dead (it's a fairly new battery and has never been weak or dead after just 1 day). I assumed it was the dome light draining it even though the light stayed dark.
I charged it over night and it started no problem. I popped the bulb out an left it like that (I figured I would just stick the bulb in when I need it seeing as my dome light has no lens).
next day battery was very weak, the truck started and the generator did it's job but I can tell somethings not right and it's likely the thing I just changed.
now I have the truck on a 2-amp charger to sustain the battery while I investigate.
I have a decent multi-meter but have not used it to check yet (Christmas presents ate my garage). I will dig it out tomorrow morning.
I'm at a loss here. It feels like it must be grounding out somewhere but all the wires seem intact that I can tell (the only section I have not looked at is behind the fuse block but I highly doubt that those are damaged based on surrounding wires (I don't think the rats got back there).
thought maybe the switch but all other functions of it work normally and it would seem odd for just that part of it to not work properly.
