electrical issue
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 11,328
Likes: 345
From: Jacksonville, FL (originally from Toronto Canada)
Well, the old-school way of tracking down a short was to put a piece of heavy wire in place of the fuse and then watch for where the smoke came from. 
I think you can eliminate the dash lighting as the source of the problem because the smaller IP DIMMER fuse would blow before the TAIL LPS fuse. That means that the short is someplace in your tail light/parking light circuit. Unfortunately, that covers a lot of area. The process of elimination would usually involve unplugging circuits until the section that had the short was found but the parking light circuit consists of mostly wiring splices without many plug connectors that can be disconnected. That means that unless you have reason to suspect a particular area, you'll have to start tracing wires manually to find the damaged one.
I think you can eliminate the dash lighting as the source of the problem because the smaller IP DIMMER fuse would blow before the TAIL LPS fuse. That means that the short is someplace in your tail light/parking light circuit. Unfortunately, that covers a lot of area. The process of elimination would usually involve unplugging circuits until the section that had the short was found but the parking light circuit consists of mostly wiring splices without many plug connectors that can be disconnected. That means that unless you have reason to suspect a particular area, you'll have to start tracing wires manually to find the damaged one.
