Toyota Repair: 1992 camry rear tail lights and brake light, volt ohm meter, left hand corner

Question
Ted,
  i hope u cam help. i have a 1992 camry 4 door. the rear tail lights and the 3rd brake light do not go on when i turn the lights
on from the switch on the steering column. the only lights that do light up are the side rear lights on the rear panel. when i step on the brake pedal they do come on. i have checked for broken wires in the harness that is located in the upper left hand corner of the trunk. there is also a yellow box that is connected to the harness which controls the lights.I checked it and it is burned out. i purchased a new one and when i went to plug it in,it started to smoke, which tells me that ther is a short somewhere? i took it off and put the other one back on.the new one is still good. without this module installed, none of the rear lights work. all of the bulbs are good. what else can i do to try and resolve this issue?

tx
nick

Answer
There is no easy answer here, yes there is a short, you checked the wires at the trunk harness where the short usually happens, the wires should be checked from the trunk hinge to where they go to the relay, if you are positive that the problem is not there check the tail light assemblies, check the bulb sockets, I have seen them short out it may be a simple matter of just replacing the sub harness for the lights. If you have a volt/ohm meter available start checking the wiring to ground, check all the green wires, these are voltage supply wires and should not be grounding, all white/black or brown/black wire wires are ground wires these should be grounding, using an ohm meter to check should give you a direction as to where the short is.