D1 Fuse 14 conundrum

Having tried to sort this out for the past two weeks with both the RAVE and the Haynes manual along with numerous web and discoweb searches, I'm a bit flummoxed so it's time to ask the big guns for some advice. I've checked continuity, which seems good, and I can't find any bad grounds, though it would seem that might be the problem at this point.

The problem: Fuse 14 (10A) blows when I shift into reverse. If I go past R quickly, it doesn't; it's only when I stay in reverse. This kills the tach, temp, and speed gauges. To my knowledge, everything else works fine. I did notice it also renders the odometer inoperable... I can drive all day with no worries.

The background: 1995 Disco auto. I've done a few things recently that may play into it such as...

1. Wired a new overhead led lamp into the boot area over the Christmas holiday. It's connected to the terminals of the existing boot light, so nothing technically new there.

2. Replaced brake and reverse light bulbs on the passenger side a few weeks back.

3. Washed the underside to rinse off all the salt. I may have sprayed too aggressively because the failures began right after that, and that's my concern.

The solution: I'm open to suggestions and only slightly pressed since I have to sort it in time for state inspection next month.

Somebody has bound to have seen this in the past 23 years, so thank you for the help!

So many wires, so little time! Thanks for these suggestions. I’ll be hunting and pecking once it gets above freezing here. At least with my 95, I can cross off the mirror right away - no power on that.

robertf said:

do you have jump seats? any chance you pinched the trailer wire in the jumpseat frame when messing with the cargo light? In that back passenger corner there is the big round trailer plug, then 2 single wire plugs. One is 12v hot, the other is reverse.

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Yes on the jump seats, and I did bump the light actuator wire and had to reconnect it for the light to come on. I rewired the trailer plug years back to run a work light, but it's certainly possible the wiring for it got wet.

It seems to be turning into an intermittent short, so something is either loose, damp, pinched or a combination of thereof. I hadn't thought about the pinch. Thanks!

I'm good on the RAVE and the 95 ETM. My buddy made sure I got those straightaway when I picked this up a few years back. I had no idea of the other downloads provided by WaltNYC - thanks! The Allbrit diagrams are a handy resource as well.

After another day of hunting around, I may have gotten a big clue when I saw my rear worklight barely lit when it shouldn't be. My first wiring project on this truck years back was to install a worklight using the trailer socket. That may be coming back to bite me now as it clearly shows something wrong. My first guess is the fused relay I installed may have gotten wet recently (and over time), so it may be done. I'm looking there first since it's clearly not right, and maybe the rest will unfold shortly. I don't think I pinched a wire replacing the tail light, but anything's possible when it's 5 degrees.

To wrap it all up, it turns out the short seemed to come from a combination of 2 things: 1) poorly connecting contacts between the bulb sockets and the 6th grade science project Rover calls the contacts coming from the taillight harness, and 2) a leftover contact that had fallen out of a previous socket change and was rattling around in the light, shortcircuiting things occasionally. Either way, that's all better.

As is the Rover repair way, though, once everything was fixed, my speedometer was bobbing around like a drunken sailor, which has proven to be a bad speed sensor. That's next on the list. Thanks again for all the help!