1997 Chevy Silverado lighting

That's good, most places will not let you return electrical parts.

When the fuse blows, do your tail lights also go out, or is it just the dash?

Hey, the cheap diagram, I was looking at, isn't very good.

Have you tracked it down to one circuit, like the dash or tail lite circuit? The information I looked at, was for a C1500 pickup. The orange wire at the headlight switch is the fused voltage circuit. The green wire is voltage for instru lite. The brown wire is voltage for the taillites. With the headlamp switch disconnected, you might try using a fused jumper between the terminals for the orange and green wire, see if the fuse still blows. If it doesn't blow, then try the brown wire. At least it might tell you which circuit is the problem circuit. You may be way ahead of me on this, maybe some of the others have better wiring diagrams.