Schizophrenic harness

[mhuppertz]

So driving home today on the freeway (the bumpy cement part) and bang, cruise off, speedo off, radio, turn signals, starter, all dead. The weird thing is the power windows, dome and glove box and I believe headlights still work. I knew it was my old nemesis, the fuse I used to replace the fusible link I burned up, but this time I got all the way home and whatever hot is grounding just kept on grounding, popping fuses instantly.
I am having trouble separating the two sides of the power circuit so that I can figure out where to start looking. The schematics aren’t making it easy...
Thoughts?

[mhuppertz]

So, I was riding my mountain bike this morning, and was trying to reason my electrical issue out. Only shorts with the key in run, not affected by pulling all the fuses, must be something in between.
BLINK! Got home after a 30 mile thrash and checked my shutwdown solenoid wire (which I use to trigger my fan relay) and it was stuck to the dipstick tube! Looks like it had gotten pinched between the dipstick and tube at some point and was shorting on the back side of the tube where I couldn't see it. DUUUHHHHH! Now I have to put all my dash wiring back together...

[dazedandconfused]

Glad to hear you found it.

[mhuppertz]

The gremlins continue. My voltages went through the roof and fried my radio (lots of smoke). Then the voltage returned to normal. It did this twice, and now the dome light circuit blows the 10amp fuse (but not a 15, it just smokes under there with a 15).
I think I am going to have to pull the cab harness and replace every questionable wire. I would rather take a bullet!
The worst part is, I know this mess is probably being caused by my wiring mods. From now on everything goes in convolute tubing!

[Tacoclaw]

This all sounds like problems with that key-on blue wire under the hood. That wire tells your VR what to charge at, so I'd suspect it. You're not gonna want to hear this, but you need to pull all of the split-loom off your harness under your hood and chase those blues to everything they go to. Mine has shorted those damn wires about 6 times now and when it did it down on the transmission it melted damn near 3/4 all those blues. I'm talking melted the insulation right off the wire, and if any other wires were close enough it wasted them as well.

I'm still chasing them down to this day, just yesterday I was moving my washer fluid wire and shorted a meted wire that goes to my windshield wiper plugin against my FPR.

I pulled them all apart and double-layered electrical tape over every inch of bare wire I found.

[mhuppertz]

Thanks for the tip. I guess I need to pull all the wiring out and fix it. I can't stand the way it is right now.