[showaski]

Thanks guys, I overlooked a fuse.

The first thing I checked was the fuse a few days ago. I thought it was good because the metal contact in the fuse didn't look broken. Plus, I checked the fuse for continuity with a multimeter, and it tested OK.

After looking over the electrical schematics and the tail light boards several times, I went back to square one and double checked the fuses. The brake light fuse was no good, but I didn't know this until I poked my multimeter's probe inside of it. I immediately saw the metal contact break in half. I replaced it with another 15 AMP fuse, and my clock now lights up (w/ parking lights off), temp/fuel gauge works, and all brake lights work.

Another thing I noticed ... each board had a dual element bulb for the brake light socket, and one of them looked burned. I didn't test it because I didn't want to pop the new fuse. I'm pretty sure the bulb blew, and maybe caused damage to the fuse. This explains a lot of the weird symptoms I was seeing with the gauges, clock, and brake pedal. I thought about the switch first, but I've never seen a bad brake swith cause brake lights to stay OFF. It's usually the opposite, and will cause the brake lights to stay ON.