So I was going through some puddles the other nights, and I blew a fuse. It was the 20amp fuse that controls the lights to the instrument cluster, shifter, temp gage and the running lights. I changed it today, and 5 minutes after I turned on the running lights, the fuse blew again. Tried it one more time, and it got fried...again. I've checked other forums, and they say to check the hitch wiring, water in headlights, short in radio, and shorts in general. I did a 15 minute inspection of all those things, and I can't find any broken or frayed wires. Should I keep looking? Or is it something else?

 

Check the connector in front of the air filter box. It gets ate up with corrosion and could get water soaked, which may be your problem.

 

Thanks, I checked around the box, but I couldn't find a bad wire.

 

You will need to isolate the problem. Pretty much everything on that fuse will need to be unplugged to determine where the short is coming from. Then you plug in each one to see if it blows the fuse. If you have a multi meter you can check for shorts to ground and shorts to voltage. This type of problem can take a long time to find especially if you don't have access to a wiring diagram to determine what wires go to where. I know that trailer wiring can do this if it gets corroded and the wires start to ground out.

 

That connector should be unpluggd to get a good look at the pins and pin cavities in the connector. Jut eyeballing the wires won't help in this case.

Like cliffpenick said, you need to start isolating circuits by unplugging connectors. The connector I mentioned is a trouble maker so it's a good place to start.

 

Alright, thanks for the advice guys. I'm just gonna start pulling stuff out one by one to see if I can find the problem.