Hey guys,
1999 SR5 3.4L 4x4 auto trans with J-Shift. I blew the 10A Display fuse on the lower left fuse block on the driver's side. I lost all readings on the instrument cluster and the fan blower control. I drove for a little bit and it drained the battery.

I got towed home, recharged the battery, located the blown fuse, replaced it and everything was working as normal, battery shows 14.6 volts and charging normally. I drove about 3 miles away to pick up mail, when I started the engine again, the fuse popped again. I replaced it, started up again and it popped again.

On the way home the Torque Pro app alerted me to the Pending P0500 Vehicle Speed Sensor fault code. Last year I replaced the instrument cluster lights with LEDs and a few months ago they began flickering. Has anyone ever encountered this?

I'm not sure where I'd begin trying to locate a short in the wiring or how this would affect the battery from charging. Any help would be appreciated.

You have something on your gauge circuit pulling more than 10 amps. Can you measure the Amp draw across that gauge circuit?

Then pull the electrical wiring diagrams to see what all is connected to that fuse.

Then, systematically check each component until you find the issue..

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The P0500 is a hint on what could be causing the fuse to pop. It not necessarily the answer to your issue but, it's a place to start your troubleshooting.

Check under the car to make sure the wiring to the abs wheel sensors at each wheel are not obviously shorting out to ground. It's free and should be easy to do.

If the gauge cluster has no power, the ECU will throw that code. Fix the fuse blowing issue and that will be resolved.

I had a random one - the flex circuit board on the back of my cluster went bad a few years ago. Didn't blow fuses though, so less likely to be the issue here.

-Charlie

The P0500 is a secondary code then.
What op can do then is to remove the gauge cluster and replace the fuse, the fuse should not blow when ignition is powered on. If the fuse blows with the cluster out of the loop, then the it's something inbetween the 10 amp fuse and the cluster wires.

Only thing connected to that 10 amp circuit is the gauge cluster itself and a separate vehicle speed sensor that looks like that's part of the gauge cluster.

If op then slips in the gauge cluter and fuse then blows, it very well could be in the cluster itself or, one other sensor that also plugs into the cluster.

Hey there. Did you ever figure out the issue? I swapped gauge clusters already, and drove about the same 3 miles and ran into the same problem. Also, whenever the fuse pops, I lose overdrive.

I'm guessing from the final post on this, the only other option is that the VSS is bad, or the wiring is bust.

Thanks!