Glad you got it. AND A BIG THANKS for coming back with the answer

 

That is pretty interesting repair.

What wires were frayed and where were they?

How did you repair the board exactly?

 

Pins A1(red-black) & A2(red) From the instrument cluster had frayed at Junction Connector B. When they did they hit the crimp on one of the black wires in Junction connector B (big connector by the dash Fuse block running up the left side of the dash) causing the short in the instrument cluster.
That is why the car would originally would stay running when the lights were on, because A1(Red-black) comes from the lighting circuit, and A2(Red) comes from the ignition.

When they bridged in the instrument cluster, power could backfeed back in to the ignition from the lights.
The final problem of the gauges not powering from the ignition power input was because this "bridge" and traces to pin a1 and a2 had broken and the cluster was being powered from the backlight power input.

Why it caused the circuit to "overload" in the instrument cluster i have no idea other than age. 350k miles on this car HA.

It also explained why putting power to where it was supposed to go on the cluster to get it to power off ignition dint work. Traces were not connected from those pins due to "short"

Ok how i fixed it...
First i tested the components on the board that the burned out traces lead to, to ensure the components were still good. Aka resistors the right value and capacitors reading correct micro-farad.
To repair the traces...
I used a razor blade to carefully scrape away the burned "green" coating over the trace about 1" in either direction from the shorts. I then used the razor blade to separate where the traces had fused together to create the bridge. Once it was cleaned up i used a fine tip solder gun to spread solder along the exposed traces, connecting them back how they were supposed to be. Then covered with silicone tape.

Put it all back together and it powered up just fine.
And now.....im so happy.....the car will not stay running with the lights on, and the gauges work when only the key is on!!!!!
heck even my fuel gauge that has long been "stuck" since this problem is now working :-D