When I step on the brakes the parking light comes on and the clock light goes dim and flickers. If anyone can help me fix this I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks

 

what year accord are we dealing with here? Put in your signature, so you won't have to remember to type it.

 

Check brake lamp bulb sockets for crushed contacts touching each other.

 

I had the same problem and finally fixed it.

THE CAR:
1992 Honda Accord Wagon LX, 340,000 miles.

THE PROBLEM:
Step on the brake pedal and the parking & dash lights light up and the clock dims to night levels.
Also discovered when I turned on the parking lights, the brake lights came on.
Made no difference if the key is in the ignition or if the car is on.
Another side effect: door open, no key in ignition, step on the brakes and the chime comes on.
Closer inspection showed both filaments in all 4 combo brake/tail lights came on when pressing on the brake pedal OR turning on the parking lights.

This means your brake lights are always on at night so other drivers won't know when you step on the brakes. NOT GOOD.

As the previous poster suggested, I removed the 5 brake light bulbs to inspect the contacts. There was some mushrooming on 3 of the combo brake/tail light bulbs but not to the point of shorting. I think the 1 bulb that looked great may be the one original bulb left. It has a nice chrome base vs brass. The sockets all looked like new. I tried the brakes with the 5 brake light bulbs out and the rest of the parking lights still lit up.

I measured the resistance from the 5 sockets to ground, all measured near zero. So much for the bad ground theory. I removed 1 ground point (right side of liftgate) lead and the resistance did not change. FYI, the electrical resistance of a normal parking light bulb is only 2 ohms and only 1 ohm for a brake light bulb which isn't much different from a bunch of wires and connectors. I also measured the resistance from the two contacts to ground and only got 2 ohms. The brake light contact should have read open in theory but in practice, that circuit also connects to at least 5 other systems, the Automatic transmission control unit, ABS brake control if the car has that, the Electronic Fuel Injection, The SRS (air bag) module and the cruise control module. The rest of the parking light circuit would include the front marker lights and the dash lights, all much lower power bulbs. After the fix I didn't measure the resistance so I can't say what normal is.

I removed each fuse (parking lights & brake lights). Removing 1 at a time still enabled the other to light up.

This all added up mentally to a short between the hot leads for the parking lights and the brake lights.

THE CAUSE:
I finally found it. The last connector to the right most tail light harness in the bottom of the right rear quarter panel is secured in place at the very bottom of that chamber. Water was getting in thru the classic Accord rear fender rust spot and accumulating in the quarter panel causing the connector to be imersed in water. The short melted the connector pretty bad and caused the 2 hot leads to come in contact.

THE FIX:
I cut out the connector and spliced the 4 wires directly together.

CLUES:
Rust around the rear wheel arch. (far too common on Hondas)
Water in the trunk/spare tire well.

Why didn't it blow fuses? Because the short was between two hot leads.
It could have or should have blown the other fuse when I removed only 1 fuse because all the parking lights, dash lights, clock light, brake lights would have been drawing current thru just 1 fuse. I'm thinking it didn't because I had first removed all 5 brake light bulbs before taking out the fuses for testing.

I've attached 2 photos of the melted connector. You can't see them when it's anchored in place in the car and it didn't have much visual damage. I had to pry it apart and then you could see it well.

Rick