Originally Posted by 89Cherokee

If you have a volt meter I would check for resistance of the copper wire from the dimmer switch to the fuse block. If that wire is original I wouldn't assume that is would have that much resistance but if you have a 30A fuse attached to a 10A wire it would definitely cause the wire to melt! if you just rewired the whole front end i would check if you crossed a wire - connecting a ground and live wire together will basically create a loop or act like a heater and cause the lowest grade/weakest wire to overheat and melt. I would also check each light from the dimmer switch and connect it directly to see if any of them causes your battery to drain quickly.

Question: did you ground each of the lights to the same point or did you just wire them to a near-by metal chassis?

Originally Posted by parkerbabco

well they were lit they just were dim .. all the power is drawn to the front ones they were bright