Parking Brake Questions, among other things Options

[T wing]

I decided to paint the piece of metal that holds the gauges in place in the dash since it had a bit of rusty looking paint on it anyway (blackish paint, nice red tint). Anyway, I was taking the gauges off and got distracted by the fact that anytime all the wires were hooked up for my parking brake warning light, it would contiually flash, so I pulled out the switch under the handle and disconnected it and it still flashed, so I unpluged this maybe/maybe not extra wire and it quit, then I had to clean up the switch for the brake lever and it finally worked. Anyway, the questions (2) are this:

1: Is there any other reason for that light to flash?

2: When I pull the handbrake, the cables move all the way back to the rear calipers, but the brake doesn't actually engage. Any theories?

Thanks

oh yeah, I'll post some pics of the dash once I get it in.