Ok, brief explanation. I just went on vacation, drove the truck and parked it at my camp site last Wednesday. The truck sat untouched until this morning, Monday. Started it up to go home, no problem. All lights worked, gas gauge, temp, everything worked. Threw it into reverse to pull out of camp, and noticed my check engine light went off, my speedometer no longer worked, and both gauges dropped down as if the truck was off. I was like ok, no biggie. So I drove for half hour or so until I got into town and I stopped at the store and bought some fuses. Sure enough, the "gauge cluster" fuse was blown. I replaced it, and started it up and everything worked fine. Threw it into reverse again to back of the store, and it popped again and the cluster went out once again. Drove home 3 hours with no speedo or gauges, replaced the fuse once again with a bigger fuse (15A instead of 10A), threw it in reverse to back up the driveway to unload, and it didn't pop this time right away, but all the lights got dim (check engine light and parking brake). I let it sit in reverse for a minute, and sure enough a few seconds later, it popped.

When the fuse pops, I lose half the cluster. The speedometer, odometer, gas gause, dummy lights, and temp gauge all stop working. The turn signals, bright beam, and background lights still all work. Truck is a 92 22RE.

Any ideas what it could be? Truck was untouched for 5 days, was perfect when parked, and had problems when leaving vacation.

 

short in the backup light wiring?

 

DONT add a bigger fuse to solve a blowing problem, it will only increase your chances of melting wires. They specify a particular size of fuse for a reason

Sounds like you have a short somewhere involving the reverse lights.

 

I know this. I only put in a bigger fuse to see if it would still pop, to see how much extra draw it was pulling vs. what it should be.