The answer to: why does this fuse keep blowing?

[Tessie McMillan]

A couple weeks ago I reported the lights in the instrument cluster in my 
'88 80Q no longer lit when I engage my headlights. It used to be that 
whenever I encountered this problem, I would find a blown 10 amp fuse 
(it's either # 14 or 12, I can't remember) and replacing the fuse would 
fix everything. When I wrote the note, I had just replaced the fuse 
several times and each time I started the car, the fuse blew again. I 
wanted to know what could be causing this.

Folks wrote to say they had similar issues with electrical shorts, and 
suggested we start with the dash cluster since I had rootled around in 
there to fix the ignition recently. So we did. We pulled the steering 
wheel, looked at the stem, pulled the cluster, examined it, and then 
looked at the ignition, etc. However, nothing seemed to present itself.
We worked our way backwards through the car and finally found that both 
bulbs for the rear license plate had burned out. Replacing these bulbs 
did the trick. As soon as new bulbs were in, the fuse no longer blew and 
my dash lights are staying lit.

I just thought I'd share this with y'all ... And ya know... Now I'm 
waiting for the other shoe to drop &:-) 

Tess
in Bellevue, WA USA