Nope, but that's a good idea. Pretty much isolates the area of the circuit to be concerned with. I was told that the mechanic bypassed the NSS and we still had the issue. I agree with your attachment and that is what I plan to look at tonight. I borrowed a multimeter and plan on testing it tonight cold and also when hot and blowing the fuse. I would think it would show a higher resistance in the leg of the wire when this is occurring. I plan on noting resistance on these legs in both conditions and it should be pretty obvious at that time. What do you think?

 

Just be sure to disconnect battery before attempting resistance tests, power on will fry a meter in ohm setting. Another thing you could try with just a test light when its popping fuses, pull the crank fuse, connect light to ground and touch fuse terminals while someone turns the key to crank, verify which one is NOT from the ignition switch and do a resistance test from that one to ground, it should be infinity, meter will read OL like you havent touched anything, or connect the test light to battery + and touch the same terminal, if it lights then you know that wire is grounded, then do the same test from which ever pin 85 on the starter relay sticks into, do these 2 tests with the nss unplugged or shifter in drive (battery disconnected, park brake set or wheels blocked, be safe!) This should pinpoint which of the two wires is the problem.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Will let you know what I find.

 

Here is what I have tried:

Start truck and pull crank fuse to see if anything is acting strange, checking for parasitic losses. No issue with anything.

Heated the truck up to where it is blowing fuses. Pulled relay and installed new fuse. Did not blow a fuse cracking the truck 10-15 times. Replaced relay and fuse blew on second crank.

Pulled crank fuse and verified ignition signal with trouble light.

With truck cold checked resistance across terminal 85 and crank fuse, this would be purple and purple/white joined and got .8-.9 ohms. Resistance in meter was .2 ohms by touching probes. Checked this again after hot and blowing fuses and it was .6-.7 ohms.

 

One thing to note that I did not post about otherwise. When it starts to blow fuses, it mildly has a grinding noise on the flywheel. It is not terrible, but present. When cold it has a good quality engagement without grinding.

 

You need to check resistance between either of those terminals and ground, if the wire is pinched it will still make its intended circuit but also be connected to ground, you wont know that unless you put one probe on ground. Your measurements indicate that there is a connection in the circuit which there should be, really thats just a test for an "open" which would cause no current flow at all and not send power to the fuse in the first place.

Also, when you pulled the relay and "cranked" it 10-15 times the starter did not do anything right?

 

Ok im not sure if anyone can even understand this but what i did was basically connect the starter relay with jumpers except for terminal 85 in the fuse panel, i then ran a jumper from the hot ignition side of the crank fuse to terminal 85 on the relay, thus completely eliminating the neutral safety circuit altogether, power goes from the crank fuse straight to terminal 85 on the relay, 86 goes where it was supposed to, ground in the terminal in the fuse block, top left brown wire, terminal 87 and 30 connect where they were supposed to, brown on bottom left and yellow top right, if you touch these two together the engine will crank.
Did i make any sense?
I may have gone a little overboard here, just tryin to help!
If you make this jumper setup and still blow fuses it has to be the relay....or maybe something else trying terminal 86s ground path....maybe....
Let me know if you dont understand my whacko jumper setup,i totally understand!
Also dont do this without the crank fuse in there somewhere, my alligator clip on the fuse is only holding it to the relay, not connected to anything else..

 

Well, I gave up. I have wasted 2 weekends and the last 4 nights screwing with this thing and got nowhere. I have to admit, I am over it.

My uncle told me to check the resistance in each leg. He said touch the tranny case with the black probe and touch the red probe to the purple wire and then to the purple/white wire. I did so and got no response on the meter. I checked from the fuse terminal to the purple wire and got .4 ohms on both the purple and purple/white wire. Make sense when the resistance to them both in series was .8-.9 ohms.

I was thinking of bypassing that circuit altogether as well but it got late and dark and I gave up. I really appreciate the suggestions and will keep you posted with what I find.

 

Spoke to the mechanic and they said they found 3 shorts. They said there was a short in the NSS wiring, one in the starter solenoid purple control wire, as well as in the power cable to the block. I am a bit skeptical, but we will see.

 

If he`s right,he`s good and I`m not. Hell I cant even read the original post right