Yup... looks to me from that that the white wire *used* to power the parking lights. Guess is that either something went wrong, and they ran some new wires, but didn't disconnect all of the old ones, so when the parking lights were on, one or more of the wires on the other end of that fuse were still hot, making the disconnected wire under the dash hot as well. Being that it was hooked around that choke cable linkage stuff, I'm guessing that it could have been pulled off the switch when pushing the choke in.

I also think that it has worn through the insulation at that point, and was grounding periodically (causing the belt to squeal). In any case, it works now. Next I need to git in there though and make sure whatever wiring they did is appropriately fused... I'm not so sure at this point.

And yea, I know. I shouldn't be randomly grounding wires like that. Don't think I bolted the sucker on though... just touched it to the chassis for a split second to look for a spark. My volt meter ain't here today, and blowing a fuse is a heck of a lot easier than cutting the whole harness apart to find a continuous wire.

Thanks again!

-Matt