Etherel15

Oh the headlights have been a huge long ordeal lol. the PO had LED headlamps installed, and I was having problems with the fuse for them (where this whole rabbit hole began). I have since replaced all the headlamp related fuses, bought a new upgrade harness that runs the headlights directly off the battery with an in-line fuse that plugs into the old harness, and I've replaced the headlamp switch in the dash. Pretty much unplugged, cleaned, and replugged in all the connectors related to headlights, as well as added new additional grounds to the radiator mount. The blown fuse and dead battery existed before I upgraded and replaced those parts, and I was hoping they would solve the problem. They fixed a couple of things, but the stupid blown fuse/short problem still persists! Annoyingly Fuse13 seems to go through a ton of different lights, so a bad wire could be anywhere: headlights, dash, doors. I haven't been able to find a nice concise list of everything that fuse goes to.

arpunk

Have you tried giving the wire harness a good wiggle in different spots while the headlights are on? If you can get the fuse to blow by wiggling a certain area you might be able to figure out where the short is.

Etherel15

at the risk of breaking something else I should definitely do that, probably sometime this weekend so if I break something I don't need the car.

Etherel15

Haven't driven it a ton in the last week, or at dark, but so far no electrical issues, and headlights have always turned on fine when testing. Tried lightly wiggling and yanking the cables, the harness tubing and straps are old and brittle enough I didn't want to be too forceful for fear of breaking plastic. Only problems with electrics now is the battery that won't keep a good charge over not being used for a few days. Drops below 12.2V fairly quickly. "vampire draw" is still around 9mah when I test.

On a totally different annoyance, I put the dash back together and of course the next day the key gets stuck in the ignition Grrrr. Guess I can be thankful it has a seperate door lock key, so I could lock the door with the key in until I could get back home. Had to take apart the stearing shroud again and wiggle the ignition unit and it came out. Hasn't stuck again yet, but I swear it will just to spit me as soon as i put the cover back on again...

Gonna cross fingers and get a new battery from Costco next Mon/Tues when they come in stock. Thanks for the advice and suggestions, made me feel more confidence in diagnosing!